mangoe@umcp-cs.UUCP (Charley Wingate) (12/04/84)
This article is not intended to be a criticism of Bob Brown's views; my intent is instead to try to present a liberal vision of Christianity. I should begin by pointing out that there is little unanimity on the liberal side of the fence. There are those who would reject almost all of the "traditional" formulation of the faith; in an attempt to illuminate the essential differences between the various positions, I will present here a fairly conservative position, which (I hope) is commonly held by many Episcopalians, Methodists, Lutherans, et cetera. Let me begin by recalling Bob's five Fundamentals: > 1) The Bible is the inerrant Word of God, trustworthy on all subjects that it deals with. > 2) The Deity of Jesus of Nazareth, that He was/is God incarnate and the awaited Messiah of Israel. > 3) The Virgin Birth, that Jesus was fathered by the Holy Spirit. His mother was Mary, Joseph's wife. > 4) The Crucifixion and shedding of Jesus's Blood as remission for everyone's sin problem. > 5) The Resurrection of Jesus, bodily, and His imminent return. In what I will refer to as a "radical conservative" formulation, we accept points 2, 4, and 5 without any reservations as givens. (Number 3 is accepted too, but is a derived truth.) Number one is the sticking point. In its place we have the following two principles: A) Together, human reason, scripture, and church tradition are authorative. B) No one of these is inerrant or possesses ultimate authority. Before I discuss these two principles, let me ensure that the meanings of the terms are understood. I think we can let human reason pass without definition, except to note that I DO NOT mean purely logical or scientific thought as some net.religion-ers would have us take it. Under scripture, we can restrict ourselves to the text of the bible as it is aceepted as canonical by the protestant churches. Church tradition, however, deserves some explanation. By tradition I do not mean merely the teaching of a denominational body at some point in time. Tradition consists of all the thinking of the Church that has gone before us. In particular, we include here the various creeds, the chiefest of which are the Nicene and Apostle's creeds. In the liberal view it is important to consult our forefathers (and mothers, I might add; there are some important medieval women) when we consider a theological problem. The chief difference between our position and the Fundamentalist position is, of course, that we do not accept the inerrancy of scripture. There are two facts which support our disbelief. First, there are many differences between any two ancient sources you care to choose, indicating that, regardless of the origin of the text, it has been allowed to be corrupted in transmission. Second, in any one text, there are obvious internal inconsistencies. In the most conservative view, we do subscribe to divine inspiration-- we also deny that it means that the evangelists were stenographers for God. Since we do not ascribe absolute authority to scripture, we must call upon other authorities in the search for doctrine. Here is where the other two authorities come into play. The normative liberal method for deciding a point of theology is thus; the appropriate group of christians reads the scriptures, is advised by church traditions, appeals to the Spirit, mulls the whole thing over, and makes their decision. The reason why we believe in the Virgin Birth is therefore because (1) scripture testifies to it, (2) chruch tradition agrees with this testimony, and (3) the Spirit assures us that this is so. Two things should be clear. First, it is clear that on any reasonably difficult question, there isn't necessarily any consensus. This I feel is a problem we must live with. The christian faith is both the simplest and most difficult of religions: simple, because belief in the resurrection is the only essential point; complicated, because of the difficulty and depth of both Gospel and church tradition. Second, there is no way to gaurantee that we are free of error. Given the history of christianity, I see recognition of the fact as a positive good; we need to keep a LOT of humility in our theology. [Would someone like to do us the service of presenting Catholic and Orthodox theology in a nutshell? Other protestant positions?] Charley Wingate umcp-cs!mangoe
scott@whuxp.UUCP (steve scott) (12/06/84)
> Let me begin by recalling Bob's five Fundamentals: > > > 1) The Bible is the inerrant Word of God, trustworthy on all > subjects that it deals with. > > > 2) The Deity of Jesus of Nazareth, that He was/is God incarnate > and the awaited Messiah of Israel. > > > 3) The Virgin Birth, that Jesus was fathered by the Holy Spirit. > His mother was Mary, Joseph's wife. > > > 4) The Crucifixion and shedding of Jesus's Blood as remission > for everyone's sin problem. > > > 5) The Resurrection of Jesus, bodily, and His imminent return. > > In what I will refer to as a "radical conservative" formulation, we accept > points 2, 4, and 5 without any reservations as givens. (Number 3 is > accepted too, but is a derived truth.) Number one is the sticking point. > In its place we have the following two principles: > > A) Together, human reason, scripture, and church tradition are authorative. > > B) No one of these is inerrant or possesses ultimate authority. > > Second, there is no way to guarantee that we are free of error. Given the > history of christianity, I see recognition of the fact as a positive good; > we need to keep a LOT of humility in our theology. Isn't that the truth! > > [Would someone like to do us the service of presenting Catholic and > Orthodox theology in a nutshell? Other protestant positions?] > > Charley Wingate umcp-cs!mangoe In response to Charley Wingate's article: I consider myself a liberal Catholic, and am in the unfortunate position of having to agree in part with his views. However, the point of no one of the sources he mentions as being authoritative causes some pause. A Council of the church (notice the small c) does have authority. I won't go into the whole discussion of it, but Nicea, Vatican II, and even Trent were all authoritative statements of the faith. It must also be recognized that human beings are infallible and therefore are subject to error. Does this mean we can throw out the decisions of previous Councils or traditions? No, we must constantly strive to retain our faith in the Lord Jesus and remember His commandment of love, which mandates that we try to integrate our spitituality of love with our every day faith. We must also not fall prey to the idea that God is no longer among us. He is infallible and therefore can guide our imperfect musings on Him and our lives. This is not well phrased or is it the official position of the Roman Catholic Church. To my mind, it is impossible to sum up the entirety (sp?) of Catholic thought in a nutshell. The only statement that can sum up the RC Church's theology is in the Nicene or Apostle's Creeds. Steve Scott ..!ihnp4!houxm!whuxl!whuxp!scott
pmd@cbscc.UUCP (Paul Dubuc) (12/06/84)
I think that I am in fairly close agreement with Charley's position,
though I've never considered myself to have a liberal view ("radical
conservative" is an interesting term). I think that, in practice,
most Fundamentalists and Evangelicals who hold the inerrancy doctrine
are closer to this veiw than it might seem. Much of the trouble seems
to come how each side defines the idea of inerrancy. I suppose as
good a collection of essays as any can be found in a book called "Inerrancy"
(Norman Geisler, ed. Zondervan, 197?).
I get the feeling that most people think of the "typewriter theory" of
insiration when the term "inerrancy" pops up, or that every statement in
Scripture is to be taken in its most literal sense (usually without even
considering the balancing factors in other parts of Scripture). There
are some, however, who seem to believe in the infallibility of the KJV.
Basic to the innerrancy view, though, is the believe that the original
autographs were inerrant. The manuscripts that we have are viewd to
be sufficiently free of transmissional errors and later isertions to
them as a Divine standard. This in no way makes a claim that human
reasoning with regard to Scripture is inerrant. Scripture holds no
royal road to knowledge that would bypass rational processes (nor
does experience or faith for that matter). Error in our understanding
and application of Scripture must be dealt with through the reasoning
process. Scripture is adressed to rational persons (yet reason is not
autonomous). But it can't be stretched to fit anything (It seems like
a person and hold any beliefs they want--even as far as agnosticism--and
still call themselves a Christian these days. And, of course, nobody has
any right to tell them they're not.) Sound hermenutics and exegesis must
be maintained. Eisegesis must be gaurded against.
Charley is right to emphasize the importance of Chruch tradition and
history. Consulting those who have gone before prevents us from
covering the same ground or making the same mistakes again.
With regard to internal inconsistencies (and those between different
books), I think they can be acknowledged provisionally. There is
no reason that I know of that they need to be accepted as final. To
do so may be to assume that our understanding of Scripture in
these areas are final. Reasonable interpretations may be sought
to reconcile them, they may be shown to be part of a larger whole
(not antithetical to one another) or they may not be that critical.
There is nothing wrong with taking an approach like this even though
we will never obtain a knowledge of Scripture that is in itself inerrant.
Arthur Holmes book "All Truth is God's Truth" (1977, IVP) deals very
well with some of these concepts in an introductory fashion. I'm using
it as a text in an adult "Sunday school" class that I've been teaching.
--
Paul Dubuc cbscc!pmd