A reader's guide to The Confessions

Zach Howard at Desiring God has put together a basic but helpful reader's guide to Augustine's The Confessions. If you want to compare different English translations, then this post might prove useful. The Latin text of The Confesssions is available here.

In all it affirms

Let's begin with some standard definitions of biblical inerrancy:

Nevertheless the historical faith of the Church has always been, that all the affirmations of Scripture of all kinds, whether of spiritual doctrine or duty, or of physical or historical fact, or of psychological or philosophical principle, are without any error, when the ipsissima verba of the original autographs are ascertained and interpreted in their natural and intended sense. There is a vast difference between exactness of statement, which includes an exhaustive rendering of details, an absolute literalness, which the Scriptures never profess, and accuracy, on the other hand, which secures a correct statement of facts or principles intended to be affirmed. It is this accuracy and this alone, as distinct from exactness, which the Church doctrine maintains of every affirmation in the original text of Scripture without exception. Every statement accurately corresponds to truth just as far forth as affirmed.

http://www.bible-researcher.com/warfield4.html

Inerrancy will then mean that at no point in what was originally given were the biblical writers allowed to make statements or endorse viewpoints which are not in conformity with objective truth. This applies at any level at which they make pronouncements (Roger Nicole). 

Inerrancy means that when all facts are known, the Scriptures in their original autographs and properly interpreted will be shown to be wholly true in everything that they affirm, whether that has to do with doctrine or morality or with the social, physical, or life sciences (Paul Feinberg).

Holy Scripture, being God's own Word, written by men prepared and superintended by His Spirit, is of infallible divine authority in all matters upon which it touches: it is to be believed, as God's instruction, in all that it affirms: obeyed, as God's command, in all that it requires; embraced, as God's pledge, in all that it promises (Chicago Statement on Inerrancy).

There are some problems with these definitions. Or perhaps I should say there are some limitations to these definitions:

i) Three of the four definitions include a key caveat: Scripture is true or inerrant in what it affirms. The reason for that qualification is indicated in the Hodge/Warfield article. Even when Scripture employs hyperbole or approximations, it is still true because the Bible writer didn't intend to be more precise. For instance, round numbers would be false if the author intended to be exact, but he didn't. It is true in regard to what he was aiming for. 

ii) In some respects that's a useful caveat, but not without problems or ambiguities. Does a Bible writer affirm (i.e. intend) all the logical implications of his statements? Bible writers can only intend what they consciously will, but Bible writers aren't aware of all the logical implications of their statements. In that sense, they do not and cannot affirm everything that their statements entail. 

But that qualification would have the ironic consequence that while whatever the Bible affirms is true, the logical implications of Biblical statements may be fallible and mistaken! Yet that's an unwittingly subversive definition of inerrancy. 

By the same token, Micah didn't affirm that Jesus of Nazareth is the Messiah. He didn't know who the Messiah would be. He knew some things about the Messiah, but he did not and could not intend for them to be about Jesus in particular, since he was ignorant of Jesus. 

It seems to follow from the caveat that Micah's messianic oracle might be fallible and erroneous in reference to Jesus. But once again, that definition sabotages the purpose of the definition! 

iii) This goes to another ambiguity in the definitions. What's the relationship between the Bible and Bible writers? Strictly speaking, a writing does not and cannot intend anything. Only a writer can intend something. Intent is a psychological state. 

On the other hand, a writing can imply something. So we might say Bible writers are inerrant in whatever they intend while the Bible is inerrant in whatever it implies. A distinction between what the prophet Micah intends and what the prophecy of Micah entails. And these are complementary.

BTW, when I say "intend", I don't mean that in terms of what a prophet was planning to say or planning to write, but what he meant to express by his actual words. 

Sometimes there's a gap between intent and performance, where an agent was planning to do something, but failed to realize his objective. But I'm not separating intent from performance.

iv) To say that a Bible writer didn't affirm all the logical implications of his statements, or that a Bible writer didn't affirm future referents of his oracles, doesn't mean he disaffirms their referents or entailments. His intentions are not at variance with the implications or outcomes. 

v) Another ambiguity concerns the truth-bearers of inerrancy, or the truth-bearers of what the Bible "affirms". The Bible contains different kinds of statements. Assertions, denials, questions, commands, prohibitions. Strictly speaking, truth or falsity is a property of propositions. 

But consider that restriction in regard to nonpropositional statements in Scripture. Take the binding of Isaac, which is a command. Or prescriptions and proscriptions in the Mosaic law. Or God interrogating Adam and Eve in the Garden. Technically, that falls outside the purview of the definition. 

Questions per se don't affirm or deny anything. Commands and prohibitions don't affirm or deny anything. Does this mean that since the genre of nonpropositional statements has no truth-value, an inerrantist needn't credit them? 

vi) A final omission is a failure to define "truth". Insofar as Scripture is propositional revelation, that might select for the coherence theory of truth:  

A coherence theory of truth states that the truth of any (true) proposition consists in its coherence with some specified set of propositions. The coherence theory differs from its principal competitor, the correspondence theory of truth, in two essential respects. The competing theories give conflicting accounts of the relation that propositions bear to their truth conditions. (In this article, ‘proposition’ is not used in any technical sense. It simply refers to the bearers of truth values, whatever they may be.) According to one, the relation is coherence, according to the other, it is correspondence. The two theories also give conflicting accounts of truth conditions. According to the coherence theory, the truth conditions of propositions consist in other propositions. The correspondence theory, in contrast, states that the truth conditions of propositions are not (in general) propositions, but rather objective features of the world. 

https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/truth-coherence/

Yet the Bible constantly makes claims about the world. So that might select for a correspondence theory of truth. It may be best for a statement on inerrancy to define truth in reference to coherence and correspondence alike, where these are applicable. 

Mind you, that's deceptively simple. For instance, the correspondence theory involves vexed questions about the identity of the relevant truth-makers and truth-bearers.

vii) I don't think these deficiencies are a big problem, because definitions of inerrancy function to some degree as placeholders for creedal statements. In other words, abstract definitions, because they operate at such a high level of generality, are deficient at the level of particulars. But inerrantists have very specific things in mind when they formulate these definitions. The Bible is the concrete frame of reference. Inerrantists have specific kinds of things in mind which their definitions are designed to cover. In and of themselves, the definitions are not that discriminating. So they need to be supplemented by actual examples. The historicity of many Bible narratives. Predictive prophecy. And so on. 

The Westminster Confession

I agree with Helm regarding Craig's misinterpretation of the Westminster Confession:

http://paulhelmsdeep.blogspot.com/2017/12/the-westminster-standard-i.html

http://paulhelmsdeep.blogspot.com/2018/01/the-westminster-standard-ii.html

I also agree with his criticisms of middle knowledge. And Helm is correct that divine foreknowledge is grounded in divine foreordination. 

However, Helm's appeal to certain prooftexts (Acts 2:23; Rom 8:29; Rom 11:2) is somewhat confused. Proginosko sometimes means "to choose beforehand" rather than "to know beforehand". The meaning is idiomatic. A carryover from OT usage, where treaties and covenants use yada to denote "choosing". 

Vetting creeds

Some evangelicals suffer from a superstitious reverence for the so-called ecumenical creeds, as if that's an electrified fence. If you dissent from anything in the so-called ecumenical creeds, you will be electrocuted. Technically, they admit the creeds are fallible, but in practice they act as though that's divine revelation. Yet all creeds need to be means-tested against Scripture. 

The so-called ecumenical creeds are simply positions taken by some ancient bishops in some church councils. There's nothing intrinsically sacrosanct about the process or the product. 

In his providence, God leads many people to saving faith by raising them in churches that are theologically orthodox in the main. God uses socially conditioning to save the elect. If they were born and bred in a different denomination, their theology might mirror that particular denomination. But there's a certain margin of error. Saving faith doesn't require theological infallibility. 

I don't think every Christian has the same obligation to evaluate their hereditary indoctrination. It varies according to an individual's aptitude and opportunities. To whom much is given, much is required (Lk 12:48). Teachers are held to a higher standard (Jas 3:1).

But some Christians do have a duty to sift historical theology. Catholics say that's a "me and my Bible" hermeneutic. But even if that were true, the same could be said for the church fathers. "Me and my Bible" is truer the further back you go in church history. Athanasius, Ambrose, Augustine, Jerome, Chrysostom et al. are constantly making individual judgment calls in their exposition of Scripture. Them and their Bible. 

But when someone like me is assessing the "ecumenical creeds," it's not just "me and my Bible". I have many theological consultants. Commentaries. Reference works. Systematic theologies. Exegetical monographs. And so on and so forth. 

Could I be wrong? Sure. But the same could be said for a Catholic apologist, church father, or bishop. 

Mere Protestantism

This post is a sequel to my prior post:

http://triablogue.blogspot.com/2017/09/interpretive-levels.html

I'll comment on this:

http://reformingcatholicconfession.com/

I guess the best thing that can be said for it is the pertinent reminder that the Reformation isn't over. It says a lot of things I can agree with. It has some good signatories, as well as some not so good signatories. However, I won't be signing "A Reforming Catholic Confession". I'll begin with two lesser objections:

i) Jerry Walls cochaired the drafting committee. Jerry plays a Julius Kelp/Buddy Love character, wherein he can instantly transform from a militant anti-Calvinist to "the most ecumenical man in the room" and back again. The makeup is impressive, yet the actor underneath the magnanimous makeup isn't the ecumenist, but the militant anti-Calvinist. Sorry, but I can't exercise the willing suspension of disbelief to take his performance seriously. 

ii) The document is terribly redundant inasmuch as there's already plethora of "mere Protestant" creeds in circulation. Every evangelical seminary, college, denomination, and parachurch ministry has a generic evangelical statement of faith. 

However, I wouldn't say (i-ii) are deal-breakers. Moving along:

He will judge the world, consigning any who persist in unbelief to an everlasting fate apart from him, where his life and light are no more. 

Notice what that doesn't say. No mention of "eternal misery" or "everlasting conscious punishment". It's worded in such a way that an annihilationist can sign it. And that's probably intentional.

Perhaps a supporter of the "mere Protestant" confession will say it doesn't deny everlasting conscious punishment. 

Yet creeds are equally important for what they exclude as well as what they include. That's a basic function of creeds. To draw boundaries. To rule some positions out of bounds. 

And needless to say, it is equally silent on Purgatory, which is making a comeback thanks the cochairman of the drafting committee (Jerry Walls). 

What about penal substitution? That, too, is passed over in silence. How mere can you get? 

By the same token, this "mere Protestant" confession is silent on open theism. A "mere Protestant" confession that leaves the door open for open theism, annihilationism, and Purgatory is too mere for me. 

That Protestants are divided is equally obvious and, given our Lord’s prayer for unity (“that they may be one” – John 17:11), even more grievous.

i) Sigh. By that logic, the Son's prayer has gone unanswered for 2000 years. Even if, after 2000 years, the Father finally got around to granting the Son's petition, isn't that like a health insurance company authorizing treatment a week after the patient died? 

ii) Didn't Jesus say the Father always hears him (Jn 11:41-42). So shouldn't we believe that the Father already granted the Son's petition? Indeed, that the Father has been continuously granting that petition, throughout the course of church history–from the inception up to the present–until the Parousia? 

In that event, we should see in church history an answer to that prayer. If we fail to see that, it must be because we're looking for the wrong thing. 

What kind of unity is Jesus referring to? I think the best explanation is that if believers are in fellowship with the Triune God, then believers are thereby in fellowship with one another (1 Jn 1:3,6-7).

Our reforming catholic confession sets forth the catholic substance of the faith (the consensual tradition worked out over the first few centuries of church history about the triune God) according to the Protestant principles of the faith (sola scriptura, sola gratia, sola fide).

i) Freewill theists don't believe in sola gratia. They have a synergistic soteriology.

ii) What about Protestants who reject the classic Protestant (e.g. Reformed or Lutheran) view of justification in favor of something like the New Perspective on Paul? Or the more recent position of John Barclay? 

That these two ordinances, baptism and the Lord’s Supper, which some among us call “sacraments,” are bound to the Word by the Spirit as visible words proclaiming the promise of the gospel, and thus become places where recipients encounter the Word again. Baptism and the Lord’s Supper communicate life in Christ to the faithful, confirming them in their assurance that Christ, the gift of God for the people of God, is indeed “for us and our salvation” and nurturing them in their faith.

I think the sacraments are simply pictures. 

the Spirit proceeded to guide (and continues to guide) the church into a right understanding of these foundational texts (John 15:26; 16:13).

In a sense this is the right doctrine from the wrong texts. 

i) In context, Jn 15:26 & 16:13 isn't a promise to "the church". 

ii) There is a sense in which God continues to guide "the church". God gives teachers to the church. And God preserves the elect. That doesn't render them infallible, but to keep them faithful, God prevents them from straying too far. 

Yet, given the weight of orthodox judgment and catholic consensus, individuals and churches do well to follow the example of the Reformers and accept as faithful interpretations and entailments of Scripture the decisions of the councils of Nicaea (325), Constantinople (381), Ephesus (431), and Chalcedon (451) concerning the nature of the Triune God and Jesus Christ.

"the weight of orthodox judgment and catholic consensus" is not a reliable criterion. That's an intellectual shortcut, and the appeal amounts to a circular argument. By definition, "orthodox judgement" is orthodox, but that tautology is useless in ascertaining orthodoxy. You already need a preconception of orthodoxy to recognize examples of orthodoxy in church history. 

Moreover, "catholic consensus" is a very small sample. Most Christians were uneducated back then. They were in no position to exercise independent judgment. 

One set of Christians is not the doctrinal benchmark for another set of Christians.  Divine revelation is the only standard of orthodox. The onus is not on modern-day Christians to conform their beliefs to a "catholic consensus". Rather, the onus is on a "catholic consensus" to match up with divine revelation. 

Interpretive levels

This is a prequel to a post on "A Reforming Catholic Confession". As I was thinking about it, it raised a number of preliminary questions.

i) Because Christianity is a bookish religion, centered on biblical revelation, hermeneutics is a central feature of Christianity. The interpretation of a text. That, in turn, gives rise to creeds. And, of course, that continues the interpretive process inasmuch as creeds must be interpreted. However, interpretation is a broad concept:

i) A. L. Rowse was an interpreter of Shakespeare. Likewise, Laurence Olivier and John Gielgud were interpreters of Shakespeare. Yet actors are interpreters in a different sense than commentators. The task of a commentator is to ascertain the original meaning of the text. 

By contrast, the task of an actor is to project the psychology of the character. To some degree an actor tries to get inside the role, to understand the part, but acting isn't exegesis in the usual sense.

ii) It can be interesting to watch different actors play the same role, in Shakespeare, or Sherlock Holmes, or James Bond, or whatever, precisely because different actors interpret the same role differently. That can be a virtue in acting, but that's not necessarily a virtue in exegesis, since the object of exegesis is not variety, but the correct interpretation. 

iii) And, of course, there are different kinds of acting. Some actors are more external. Some actors disappear into the part. They are very different from one role to the next. Other actors have a consistent persona which they bring to every part. People like to see the image they project. For some performers, the role is a vehicle for the actor while for other performers, the actor is a vehicle for the role.

iv) When playing a fictional character, the text or script may be the only standard of comparison. But when playing a historical figure, the real person is another standard of comparison. Some actors read biographies or autobiographies about a historical character to approximate what he was really like. But some actors don't. George C. Scott was the same in every role. He didn't imitate Patton. Rather, he played the role as if Patton was George C. Scott! Another actor might do it in reverse.

iv) Sometimes a role is written with a particular performer in mind. Peter Grimes was written for Peter Pears. Later, Jon Vickers reprised the role. Vickers had a much greater dynamic and emotional range than Pears. Even though it wasn't what Benjamin Britten intended, it's a memorable performance that tends to eclipse the singer for whom the role was tailor-made.

v) By the same token, acting is sometimes subversive. When Alec Guinness played George Smiley, he took the role in a different direction than the author envisioned. Guinness is a sympathetic actor who made Smiley a more sympathetic character than the literary exemplar. And it's been said that his performance influenced le Carré to rewrite Smiley to be more like Guinness!  

vi) Many movies are cinematic adaptations of novels. Translating a novel into the cinematic medium is, in itself, an interpretive act. In addition to the actor's interpretation there's the director's interpretation and/or the screenwriter's. And we allow for a degree of artistic license when adapting a novel to the screen. 

Mel Gibson's The Passion of the Christ is his personal interpretation of the Passion accounts in the Gospels. And James Caviezel adds his own interpretive layer. 

vii) When actors and directors are interviewed, they are often asked what the movie means or how they prepared for the role. A director is treated as an authoritative interpreter of his own films. 

On the other hand, if you ask David Lynch what Mulholland Dr. means, he might be unable to explain it. Lynch draws heavily on the subconscious. His work isn't analytical in the way many directors are. Mulholland Dr. is like a dream. It has the obscure symbolism of dreams. 

viii) A painter is an interpreter, but what a painting means is different from what a text means. Monet was more of a landscape painter while Renoir was more of a portrait painter, but they sometimes painted the same scene, which makes it interesting to compare and contrast their respective approaches.

ix) There's a distinction between what a text or movie (or painting) means, and what it means to the reader or viewer. It may have a personal significance that's independent of what it objectively means. It may trigger personal associations. 

When I come back to a movie or TV drama, watching it again may remind me of when I first saw it. It takes me back to a particular time and place. Not just the time and place of the movie, but the time and place of the viewer. What was happening in my own life. 

Or a particular scene may have an allegorical significance for me, because I compare it to something in my own experience. That idiosyncratic interpretation isn't what the director intended. He knows nothing about any particular member of the audience. 

Take the opening scene of Mulholland Dr. Floating in darkness, to the haunting, ominous, tragic tune of Badalamenti, with its descending, minor-key scales, the limo cruises down a long lonely road, with glowing taillights, intercut with the city lights of Los Angeles, in vast anonymity. For me that evokes a host of associations that are a code language for particular incidents in my own life. 

x) One function of creeds is to establish a doctrinal standard. A seminary or denomination may require an ordinand or job applicant to subscribe to a particular creed. 

In some denominations, corporate recitation of a creed is part of the liturgy. In my opinion, it's permissible for a parishioner to exercise mental reservations when reciting a creed, if he disagrees with an article of the creed, whereas it would be deceptive for an ordinand or church officer or seminary professor to do so. As a parishioner, I'm at liberty to impute a private meaning to an article of the creed. If I disagree with what "communion of the saints" probably meant, I can mentally substitute my own meaning. 

For exegetical purposes, original intent is generally normative, but how we appropriate a text is different. I'm not bound by what the director had in mind. I can find it significant for my own reasons.

Swami Jesus

I wasn't originally planning to comment on the Nashville statement. I wasn't planning to sign it. I wasn't planning not to sign it. I had no particular inclinations one way or the other.

In fact, I had no particular urge to even read it. At first I was wondering, what's special about this statement? For some time now, evangelical pundits have been saying the same thing. And you have to be a theological junkie to even know what the CBMW is. 

But then I started seeing hostile reactions pour in. The reaction to the statement justified the existence of the statement.

I signed it for the same reason Pamela Geller lampoons Islam: because I can. If you're afraid to exercise a right, you already lost it. The very fact that so many people are incensed by a bland reaffirmation of biblical norms on sex and gender is reason enough to support it. 

It's like when a Republican president makes a judicial nomination. My initial impression of the nominee is formed, not by supporters, but opponents. Does he have the right enemies? If the nomination is denounced by Planned Parenthood, the Southern Poverty Law Center et al., then he sounds like my kind of nominee. That gives me a favorable first impression of the nominee. 

The Nashville statement has succeeded in smoking out Oreo evangelicals who are evangelical on the outside but oh-so progressive on the inside.

There are roughly two strategies for attacking the Christian faith. One is a direct, frontal assault. That's more honest.

The other way is more insidious. Unbelievers attempt to co-opt the very definition of Christianity. In an age of biblical illiteracy, many unbelievers derive their view of Christianity from atheist caricatures or "progressive Christians." If they know any professing Christians at all, it's "progressive Christians" who echo the political views of the secular progressives. 

When people that ignorant hear a statement of orthodox Christian theology and ethics, they think that's a misrepresentation of Christianity. When they hear a statement that's simply a repetition of the consensus position of historic Christianity, they think that's a white, reactionary, patriarchal innovation! They're incensed by people who simply expound what Christianity actually represents. They think the real Jesus is Swami Jesus, a hippie guru who loves everybody except "fundamentalists". John Spong's Jesus. 

That's why we need to set the record straight. We need to correct the malicious caricatures and the secularized revisionism. 

Status quo appeals

An impromptu debate I had on Facebook (with minor editorial revisions):

To begin with, evangelicals aren't bound by that article of the creed ("he descended into hell"). It's just a dubious tradition. I think evangelicals should edit it out of the creed. However, if you wish to read an evangelical defense of that article, http://www.upper-register.com/papers/descended-into-hell.pdf

If evangelicals aren't bound by the ancient creeds, how is that not "solo scriptura"?

Also: dubious tradition attested to unanimously by the fathers. About which Augustine said only a heretic would deny.

I don't agree with the sola/solo dichotomy of Mathison et al. Also depends on what you mean by "solo scriptura". That's generally a term of abuse.

From a Protestant standpoint, the church fathers aren't authority figures. I don't pretend that they are in a position to know more than they did.

You probably shouldn't pretend to speak for all Protestants.

So you labor under the illusion that according to Protestant epistemology, the church fathers are authority figures? Where did you come up with that?

Um Calvin, Luther, etc etc etc You're kidding right?

Luther and Calvin cite the church fathers because they are responding to Catholic theologians on their own grounds. They're documenting that it's Rome that changed. In addition, church fathers like Augustine say things they often agree with. That's not the same thing as making church fathers authority figures. Don't you know the difference?

And you seem to be using one illicit argument from authority (e.g. Luther/Calvin say so!") to prop up another illicit argument from authority ("the church fathers say so!").

The typical reformed answer that I've read and heard is that the fathers, councils, creeds, etc are an authority but not THE authority. 

i) Uninspired creeds and councils have no intrinsic authority. If you wish to frame the issue in terms of authority, they are only authoritative insofar as they are true. And their truth is derivative.

ii) A denomination can treat a creed as authoritative. It can use a creed as a standard for ordination, church membership, hiring/firing seminary professors, &c. That's a kind of social contract.

iii) The descent into hell shouldn't be in a creed. No point reinterpreting it. Just admit it was a mistake and move on.

I'm glad that you admit that it's just you and Jesus.

That's the kind of caricature I expected. Your illogical notion that the alternative to the church fathers as authority figures is "just you and Jesus". That's so simplistic. Rather, it's a question of reason and evidence. If a church father has a good argument, then we go with the best argument, whatever the source, whether it's a church father or modern commentator. There's an elementary distinction between opinions and arguments. The mere opinion of a church father isn't presumptively true.

Of course it is just you and Jesus. While you think that it might be a "caricature", you've just defended the idea that creeds, councils, fathers, nothing has any authority over your understanding of scripture but your own conscience. It isn't illogical but the logical conclusion of what you're suggesting. You and Jesus.

Now you're trotting out the hackneyed argument of dime-a-dozen Catholic apologists who imagine there's an alternative to reliance on one's own understanding. That, however, is self-defeating, for their preference for Catholicism ultimately boils down to their personal perception of where the truth lies. That's unavoidable. You're no exception.

Okay let's take it back to the creed then. The fathers, absolutely unanimously, east and west, suggest that scripture teaches Christ descended to the dead. The clause is in both the apostles creed and the Athanasian Creed. Are you really suggesting that something so universally believed by Christians for 1800 years is incorrect? And if you believe it is incorrect, and that the individual has the right to throw out the clause, do you not see the epistemic problem for the Protestant? It puts one in a position where no single article of faith is accepted but everything believed can be reimagined or ejected on the basis of not appealing to the individual conscience.

i) To begin with, appeals to the consensus patrum are often inaccurate.

ii) Keep in mind that even if (ex hypothesi) Jesus went to hell when he died, there could be no eyewitnesses to that event this side of the grave.

iii) Most Christians back then were uneducated. So you're appealing to a tiny subset of Christians. That's a very unrepresentative sample.

iv) Do recall that "heresy" was punishable as a crime. That discourages public dissent.

v) It's no more of a problem to say the church fathers are wrong than to say evangelicals are wrong. However you slice it, someone is mistaken. God has not ensured uniformity in Christian belief. God allows some class of Christians to be mistaken. If Lutherans are right on some issues, then Roman Catholics are wrong, and vice versa (to take one example). 

Suppose an Orthodox Jew tells a Christian, "Are you really suggesting that God failed to protect the Chosen People from disbelieving the true messiah?"

Why is it unacceptable for you suppose that God failed to protect the church fathers from falsely believing the descensus ad infernos, but acceptable for you to suppose that God failed to protect the vast majority of Jews from repudiating the prophesied messiah?

Whatever side come down on, God fails to protect large bodies of professing Christians from a serious error. Consider Roman Catholics, Eastern Orthodox, and Oriental Orthodox. They have fundamental disagreements with each other. Minimally, God failed to protect two of the three groups from falling into serious doctrinal error. Possibly he failed to protect all three groups. Not to mention dissension within those groups, viz. Old Calendarists, Hesychast controversy.

How is that not an epistemic problem for the high-church tradition? 

So the idea that there's a problem if God allows many professing Christians to be in error is unavoidable, since that's going to be the case regardless of which side you take.

vi) I haven't appealed to "individual conscience". That's your lingo. I didn't make this an issue of conscience.

If you distrust the adequacy of reason, then you disqualify yourself from arguing for your own position. Take an evangelical convert to Rome. They interpret the Bible and church fathers to support Roman Catholicism. It seems to them that Catholicism is true. That's irreducibly an exercise in private judgment. You can't get around that.

It puts one in a position where no single article of faith is accepted but everything believed can be reimagined or ejected on the basis of not appealing to the individual conscience.

Creeds are not the ultimate standard of comparison. Only revelation enjoys that distinction.

They'll never win the continuity argument, but if Protestants can pretend to care about it, it can trick a ton of people.

Catholics will never win the continuity argument either. Newman chucked the continuity argument for what he euphemistically dubbed the theory of development.

Newman didn't create the idea of the development of Christian doctrine. The idea is present in Origen, Augustine, and probably most clearly St. Vincent of Lerins. Heck, even Aquinas speaks on it.

The Vincentian canon is the polar opposite of development. Try to differentiate between what they claim and the reality.

What makes a denomination orthodox?

I'd like to expand on something I recently said in email to a couple of friends. This has specific reference to the Church of Rome, but it's applicable to some other denominations. 

What makes a denomination orthodox? If a denomination "officially" has one or more orthodox creeds, does that make it orthodox? 

For instance, Catholic apologists point to the Catechism to prove Rome's orthodoxy. Of course, from a classic Protestant standpoint, the orthodox positions in the Catechism are offset by the heterodox positions. So that appeal cuts both ways.

There is, however, another issue. Creeds don't believe anything. An affirmation of faith doesn't affirm anything. Creeds are inanimate objects. It takes a person to affirm (or disaffirm) a creed. 

It's rational agents who assent, dissent, believe, or disbelieve. Orthodoxy isn't primarily a matter of what's on paper. The church isn't a piece of paper. The church isn't a bunch of words. The church is people. What people actually do, actually believe. 

Strictly speaking, it's not creed that are orthodox or heterodox, but people. Creeds have no beliefs. Only people have beliefs. Beliefs are properties of personal agents, not sentences. Creeds refer to grace, but creeds have no grace. Only personal agents have grace.

If you wish to get technical about it, words and sentences are intrinsically meaningless. They are only meaningful because they are meaningful to a linguistic community. 

Because human beings aren't telepathic, we can't directly communicate ideas. So we use the medium of the spoken or written word (or sign language, as need be). Language encodes ideas. 

Suppose we bracket God's mind. Suppose the only minds were human minds. Suppose human minds suddenly ceased to exist. All the books would become meaningless at one stroke. Without minds to understand the words and sentences, they have no meaning. Books are mindless. 

I think good creeds are a good thing. But by themselves, creeds are not an index to the orthodoxy of a denomination. 

The Shahadah

The Shahadah is usually rendered one of two ways:

There is no God but God

That's virtually a tautology. Perhaps the only thing that spares it from pure tautology is the implicit monotheism in the singular formulation. That might be designed to rule out polytheism.

By by itself, it fails to say who God is. It doesn't distinguish the true God from rival claimants. What God does it refer to?

Perhaps, though, that lacuna is supplied by the next phrase: "and Muhammad is his prophet/messenger."

The other rendering is:

There is no God but Allah

That has greater specification. It pinpoints the God in question as Allah–to the exclusion of other named Gods. 

That might be what the sentence intends to convey, where the first occurrence of the divine name is generic while the second occurrence is specific. The first occurrence is denotative while the second occurrence is connotative.

But it's striking that we have this semantic ambiguity in the fundamental creed of Islam. What does the Shahadah even mean? 

Vos on the descent into hell

Personally speaking, I agree with Grudem on this issue. However, here's a useful comparison and contrast for those who care:

http://feedingonchrist.com/jesus-descend-hell/

William Ames and the Christian life

http://paulhelmsdeep.blogspot.com/2014/11/william-ames-and-christian-life.html

A word on Oliver Crisp's "Deviant Calvinism"

http://theologui.blogspot.com/2014/11/a-word-on-oliver-crisps-deviant.html?m=1

Burnt to a Crisp

I'm going to comment on an interview with Oliver Crisp:

http://www.christianitytoday.com/ct/2014/september-web-only/softer-face-of-calvinism.html

There are many tensions in his interview, but one in particular is the tension between ecumenism and the progress of dogma. The progress of dogma is divisive and sectarian rather than ecumenical. The progress of dogma generates increasing theological divergence rather than convergence over time.

The less people are required to agree about, the more they agree. It's easy to agree with the uninterpreted statements in the Apostles' creed. That conceals a lot of latent disagreement. It's easy to agree with the Nicene Creed, because it only covers a few topics.

The Westminster Confession is more sectarian because it covers far more ground. The more theological questions you presume to answer, the more room for disagreement that creates or exposes. 

The progress of dogma begins with many open questions in theology. Over the centuries, more questions are given official answers. There are ever fewer open questions. People takes sides. That's moving apart. 

The catholic creeds of the first few centuries of the church are a secondary tier of norm that witnesses to Scripture. Then we have confessions that represent particular church bodies, like the 39 Articles of Anglicanism—which are very Reformed, I might add—and the Westminster Confession for Presbyterians. Confessions are a third tier of witness, norms that stand under Scripture and the catholic creeds.

I understand that that ranking system is appealing to an ecumenist. But if we're truth-seekers, why would the earliest creeds, the most theologically underdeveloped creeds, outrank later, more theologically reflective creeds?

Or one might end up cherry-picking some things and not others.

What about a different agricultural metaphor? Winnowing the wheat from the chaff?

No one theologian, however important, can trump the voice of the church expressed in the creeds or confessions. 

Are creeds or confessions "the voice of the church"? Creeds and confessions are formulated by a handful of bishops or theologians. They can be appropriated by "the church." Christians can embrace them. But they don't start out as "the voice of the church." They must earn that right. They must be true. A creed can speak on my behalf if it's true. 

But in that respect, a theologian a trump a creed. It just depends on who is right. 

There's no tradition of universalism in Calvinism. No universalism in Reformed confessions. Heck, no Reformed theologians of any note who espouse universalism. 

Perhaps that's why he tries to classify Barth as a Reformed theologian. To use Barth's implicit universalism as a foothold. But that's circular. That begs the question of whether Barth is Reformed.

And tradition aside, reprobation goes to the deep structure of Reformed theology. It's not just a historical accident–like some inherited doctrines. 

Although universal unconditional election is theoretically possible, reprobation concretely demonstrates the unconditionality of election. God doesn't have to save everyone, and he proves it directly by not in fact saving everyone. 

Moreover, this isn't just a question of different possible ways to combine different ideas. There are factual constraints on Calvinism. Calvinism is guided by its understanding of revealed truth. 

Does he mean universalism is compatible with Calvinism because Calvinism has the internal resources to pull it off? If predestination is true, then God can predestine everyone to be saved? (Which would require other adjustments, like universal atonement.)

If so, how does that fit into his libertarian Calvinism?

Finally, yes, all things being equal, God could save everyone. But what if, all things considered, God has objectives which conflict with universal salvation? 

It's not just a matter of extending the scope of election, while leaving everything else intact. There are tradeoffs.

For that matter, why would God predestine the Fall in the first place if he intended to save everyone? 

Two 19th-century Reformed theologians come to mind. The first is William Cunningham, who was a professor at the University of Edinburgh and one of the founding fathers of the Free Church of Scotland. He wrote an important essay on this topic, arguing that the Westminster Confession neither requires nor denies “philosophical determinism,” as he called it. He believed the Confession is conceptually porous on the matter and doesn’t commit its adherents to determinism, though it doesn’t exclude it either.

He's wrong about that. Cunningham was distinguishing between spiritual inability due to original sin, and Edwardian necessitarianism. Edwards isn't just a divine determinist. Arguably, he's a divine necessitarian. 

It isn't just a question of whether humans could do otherwise, but whether God could do otherwise. I think this is related to his appeal to the principle of sufficient reason which he deployed against Arminians. God must have a sufficient reason for what he does. And that means God can't do otherwise. Alternate possibilities aren't live possibilities–even for God.

You have that tension in Leibniz, as well as Aquinas. Cunningham is noncommittal on metaphysical necessity. That's a very strong version of determinism. 

One question is what is he opposing? William Hamilton is one of his foils, whom he quotes:

That man has no will, agency, moral personality of his own, God being the only real agent in every apparent act of His creatures…that the theological scheme of the absolute decrees implies fatalism, pantheism, the negation of a moral governor, as of a moral world (471).

Clearly, to reject that is not to endorse either libertarian freewill or merely partial predestination (pace Crisp).

Cunningham then defines his terms:

The advocates of this doctrine [philosophical necessity] maintain that there is an invariable and necessary connection between men's motives and their volitions,–between objects of desire and pursuit as seen and apprehended by them and all their acts of volition or choice; or that our volitions and choices are invariably determined by the last practical judgment of the understanding.The invariable and necessary influence of motives in determining volitions,–and a  liberty of indifference, combined with a self-determining power in the will itself,–are thus the opposite positions of the contending parties on this question.  The dispute manifestly turns wholly upon a question as to what is the law which regulates those mental processes that result in, or constitute, volitions or choices (484).

Throughout the essays he refers to a "system of necessity" or psychological "laws." He associates philosophical necessity with a regime of psychological laws.

It's an interesting question where that framework comes from. Does that involve a parallel between physics and psychology? Does that involve an extension of Newtonian physics to psychology? Just as there are laws of nature, there are laws of the mind? 

On that model, philosophical necessity suggests that God determines human choices through the mediation of psychological laws. I'm not sure what that's supposed to mean, but in any event, the logical alternative to that framework isn't libertarian freedom. It's not as if "psychological laws" are the only way God could determine human choices. 

Cunningham says:

Predestination implies that the end or result is certain, and that adequate provision has been made for bringing it about. But it does not indicate anything as to what must be the nature of this provision in regard to the different classes of events which are taking place under God's government, including the volitions of rational and responsible beings (509).

Here he distinguishes between what God predetermines and how he brings it about. He's noncommittal on the mode of execution, but not on the scope or inevitability of predestination. 

It [the will] is not emancipated from the influence of God's decrees foreordaining whatever comes to pass. It is not placed beyond the control of HIs providence,–whereby in the execution of His decrees He ever rules and governs all His creatures and all their actions. It is not set free from the operation of those general laws which God has impressed upon man's mental constitution, for directing the exercise of his faculties and regulating his mental processes. But it is set free from the dominion of depravity; and thereby it is exempted from the necessity of willing only what is evil… (521).

Here Cunningham affirms the universality of predestination. Everything is foreordained. Everything comes to pass by God's providence. 

The closest thing Cunningham says which might give Crisp is "wiggle room" is:

The doctrine of necessity, when once established, leads by strict logical sequence to predestination, unless men take refuge in atheism. But it does not seem to follow e converso, that the doctrine of predestination leads necessarily to the doctrine of necessity; as men may hold, that God could certainly execute His decrees and infallibly accomplish His purposes in and by the volitions of men, even though he had not impressed upon their mental constitution the law of necessity, as that by which its processes are regulated and its volitions determined (513).

But that doesn't reject divine determinism. Rather, it's noncommittal on a model of divine determinism based on "law-like" mechanism. 

He does say, two pages earlier, that:

...we think, unwarranted and presumptuous to assert, that even a self-determining power in the will would place it beyond the sphere of the divine control,–would prevent [God]…from superintending and directing all its movements according to the counsel of His own will (511). 

Although taken by itself, a "self-determining power of the will" suggests autonomy, he couches that as a hypothetical position, and even so, he states that in the context of God's ability, even in that hypothetical situation, to control the outcome.  

Cunningham distinguishes lack of freedom due to original sin from lack of freedom due to psychological laws. Although he discusses Edwards, one limitation of his analysis is that his interpretation of Edwardian philosophical necessity doesn't consider another definition of philosophical necessity: the principle of sufficient reason.

However, I don't think commitment to the PSR commits one to metaphysical necessity. At most, God must choose the best provided that there's one best thing to choose. But that seems equivocal. Since not all possible goods are compossible, some possible goods must be sacrificed to achieve other possible goods. In that event it's not clear that there is one best choice. The distinctive goods of one possible world are gained at the loss of other distinctive goods. So God is never confronted with a forced option. 

Back to Crisp:

On one hand, I am concerned about ecumenical theology and the place of Reformed theology relative to other communions within Christianity. But I am also trying to show there is a significant breadth to the Reformed tradition that is often overlooked, that there is more wiggle room than is often perceived.

Ecumenists are such silly people. Every generation has ecumenists. They fail, just like the previous generation.

That's because ecumenical dialogue consists of ecumenists dialoguing with fellow ecumenists. It's circular from start to finish. 

Ecumenists don't really come to agreement. Rather, they wouldn't be ecumenists in the first place unless they were noncommittal on some doctrines. Those are the bargaining chips. That's what they are prepared to give away. Those were always negotiable. Their commitment to ecumenism precommits them to find areas of agreement. Their agreement was a foregone conclusion. So they end where they began. There's no real progress (even if that was a good thing).

Ecumenists remind me of women who knowingly marry philanderers. They think to themselves, "But this time it will be different. He won't cheat on me, because he truly loves me. I'm special. Why, he looked in my eyes and told me that never met anyone like me." Yeah...which is something he says to every woman. 

Take, for example, the Book of Confessions of the PCUSA, my own denomination. 

Well, I'd say he just tipped his hand.