hedrick@topaz.ARPA (Chuck Hedrick) (06/24/85)
From Steve Thiel (ihnp4!ut-ngp!thiel): > ... If I understand the situation correctly, the Presbyterian > Church (U.S.A.) makes no claims for scientific or historical accuracy; I > know for certain that I, a Presbyterian, make no such claims. In practice, the Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.) is moderately inclusive. It thinks of itself as the heir of the Presbyterian/Reformed tradition as a whole. The doctrinal standard is the Book of Confessions. This book contains a variety of documents, including the Apostles and Nicene Creeds, a number of traditional Reformed documents, the Declaration of Barmen (an anti-Nazi document from WW II), and the Confession of 1967 (from the old United Presbyterian Church). We believe that this provides a good balance between having doctrinal standards and having individual freedom of interpretation. The themes that come through these documents are: - The authority of Scripture does not depend upon men, but on God. This is a basic doctrine of the Reformation. It is in opposition to the (supposed) Catholic position that Scripture was simply an expression of Church tradition, and that tradition was the basic authority. - Scripture is *the* authority about all matters of faith, doctrine, church order, morals, etc. None of the confessions use Scripture as a source of scientific knowledge. - Scripture is to be interpreted by itself. That is, when it is not clear, you should look for other parts of Scripture that are clear, and interpret the former in the light of the latter. - the importance of hearing the Scripture in faith, with the guidance of the Holy Spirit. However there are also subtle differences among the documents. The most extreme is the Westminster Confession. It asserts without qualification that Bible is the Word of God, and is infallible. The Second Helvetic Confession is close to this, but does not use the word infallible explicitly. The Heidelberg Catechism seems to suggest a more general view. It thinks of the Gospel as being something shown in a number of different ways. It does not teach a specific doctrine about Scripture, though it quotes the Bible as an authority. The Barmen declaration talks about Jesus Christ as the Word of God, attested in Scripture. Note this difference in language. Some of us prefer to reserve the term Word of God for Christ. When God wanted to manifest his Word fully, he incarnated it as a person, not as a book. The Bible is then the witness by which we hear about this. However Westminster, and many conservative Christians today, use the term Word of God primarily for the Bible. These are not necessarily mutually exclusive uses. One can use the term Word of God for both (as the Confession of 67 does), but there seem to be different emphases, and each person or document seems to have one primary emphasis. The Confession of 67 specifically explains that the Bible is historically conditioned. Interestingly enough, it still uses the term Word of God to refer to it. That is an odd usage, since the rest of the text uses the model of the Bible as a witness. This confession does not specifically say that the Bible contains errors, though it says that it contains views of man and the cosmos from the period when it was written. It is very clear that the Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.) contains people who represent the entire range of views shown in the Book of Confessions. There are plenty of people who believe that the Bible contains errors, and plenty who believe it is the Word of God and is infallible. And various positions in between. The Church wisely accepts this diversity. There are official policies based on each of the views. E.g. our acceptance of female officers and ministers is based on an acknowlegement that Paul's views represent his time, and are not binding on us. However the church is not willing to take a similar approach to homosexuality. Some of this may be a change over time. The church is probably more conservative now than when it initially adopted the position on female officers. That was true even before the merger with the Southen church, and of course that merger probably made it yet more conservative. (The merger allows churches that were part of the former P.C.U.S. to exempt themselves from the rules regarding female officers. It also protects that rule from amendment.) Here is a summary of the views of the various documents in the Book of Confessions: Nicene and Apostles creeds: nothing specific Scots Confession: "... sufficient to instruct and make perfect the man of God, ... authority to be from God ..." Heidelberg Catechism: quotes Scripture as if it is an authority, in a number of places. It has an interesting comment about the Gospel: "the holy gospel, which God himself revealed in the beginning in Garden of Eden, afterward proclaimed through the holy patriachs and prophets and foreshadowed through the sacrifices and other rites of the Old Covenant, and finally fulfilled through his own well-beloved Son." What I find interesting about this is that the Gospel is seen as something more general than a particular set of texts in the Bible. Second Helvetic Confession: "... to be the true Word of God, and to have sufficient authority of themselves, not of men. For God himself spoke to the fathers, prophets, apostles, and still speaks to us through the Holy Scriptures. ... the most complete exposition of all that pertains to a saving faith ..." It goes on to talk about the authority of Scripture for various purposes, all of them religious. Westminster Confession: "The authority of the Holy Scripture ... dependeth not upon the testimony of any man or church, but wholly upon God (who is truth itself), the author thereof; and therefore it is to be received, because it is the Word of God. ... infallible truth and divine authority thereof ..." Shorter Catechism: "The Word of God which is contained in the Scriptures of the OT and NT is the only rule ..." Larger Catechism: "The holy Scriptures of the Old and New Testaments are the Word of God, the only rule of faith and obedience. ... The scriptures principally teach, what man is to believe concerning God, and what duty God requires of man." Barmen: nothing explicit about the Bible, but does use the language "Jesus Christ, as he is attested for us in Holy Scripture, is the one Word of God..." Confession of 67: "The one sufficient revelation of God is Jesus Christ, the Word of God Incarnate, to whom the Holy Spirit bears unique and authoritative witness through the Holy Scriptures, which are received and obeyed as the word of God written. The Sciptures are not a witness among others, but the witness without parallel. ... The Scriptures, given under the guidance of the Holy Spirit, and nevertheless the words of men, conditioned by the language, thought forms, and literary fashions of the places and times at which they were written. They reflect view of life, history, and the cosmos which were then current. The church, therefore, has an obligation to approach the Scriptures with literary and historical understanding. ..."