mike@turing.cs.unm.edu (Michael I. Bushnell) (05/29/90)
I have started a project of writing a personal confession of faith.
The major divisions will be chosen to match the chapters of the
Westminster Confession of faith.
This represents my personal beliefs. I feel them to be scriptural, in
accordance with the Reformed tradition, and in observance of the
Confessional documents of the Presbyterian Church (USA) (of which I am
a member). Perhaps it's sufficient to say that they are scriptural,
since I do think that the Reformed tradition and the PCUSA confessions
are scriptural themselves. Oh well.
This really isn't an invitation to debate, but I'm certainly glad (as
I always am) to discuss things over the net or in private mail, as
correspondents prefer (subject to the moderator's discretion, of
course).
Perhaps it,s fortuitous that the first chapter is so in line with the
Zeitgeist on s.r.c. Who knows. I plan to write one chapter a week.
Next week, chapter II, is "Of God, and of the Holy Trinity".
Here goes:
Chapter I. Of the Holy Scripture
It is significant that the Westminster Confession opens with an
analysis of Holy Scripture. By comparison, the Scots Confession's
first chapter is titled "God"; the Heidelberg Catechism begins, "What
is your only comfort, in life and in death?"; the first affirmation of
the Theological Declaration of Barmen is that "Jesus Christ ... is the
one Word of God which we have to hear and which we have to trust and
obey in life and in death"; the Preface to the Confession of 1967
discusses the reconciliatory nature of the church. Only the Second
Helvetic Confession also opens with an analysis of Scripture.
The other confessional statements are organized around the logical
structure of their subject. Clearly, this places God first, and so
they begin. But the Westminster and Second Helvetic Confessions are
structured more like a treatise which will proceed from "first
principles" and progress onward. So, they start with Scripture, and
they quickly get to God.
This reflects the Sola Scriptura tradition of the Reformed Church
quite nicely, and it is not coincidental that these are the "most
Reformed" of the various Confessions. Sola Scriptura, as a watchword,
means many different things, however. It is necessary to decide what
is Scripture, how it came to us, and what place it should have in our
lives before we can progress.
One thing is immediately obvious: Christians are not united on the
canon. We all accept those books found in the Hebrew canon, and we
all accept the same corpus of writings from the early church. But we
disagree about the Apocrypha. The Westminster Confession informs that
they "are no part of the canon of the Scripture". While it cites
early Christian tradition as a source of the canon, it is clear that
some of the church fathers accepted the complete text of the
Septuagint, which includes the Apocrypha.
The very name is suggestive. It means "hidden". For quite a long
time, the books were hidden, and not to be used by Protestants. Why?
The answer is to be found from two sources. First, the reasons for
using the Old Testament at all, and, second, the Jewish tradition.
We use the Old Testament because we view ourselves as spiritual
descendants of the nation of Israel. We believe that the Jewish
understanding of God is a logical prefix to our own, and, quite
importantly, that the Apostles were all members of that tradition, and
looked quite serously to it.
The Jewish tradition does not accept the Apocrypha. It never has,
with the exception of a small sect which included it in its
translation, called the Septuagint. Were it not for the unique
availability of that translation, we would not be concerned with the
Apocrypha at all. It is not part of the faith record of the nation of
Israel, and that record is precisely what the Old Testament is and why
we use it at all.
The New Testament contains those books held by the early church to be
the writings of the Apostles, or in accordance with their teachings.
Any other books now available must be suspect of their genuinness
precisely because of their ommision from the canon and from notice for
so long. They were not held to be important or genuine at the time,
by people far more connected to and remembrant of the early church,
and we have no reason to reverse their judgement.
And so we have the canon. We believe it to be sufficient, as well as
reliable, and so we do not seek for additions and modifications. The
research we do conduct is to determine the accuracy of the texts
available to us, but not to seek new texts to add to the old.
We believe that the Spirit of God is necessary to a proper
understanding of scripture. This is not a special case, however. The
spirit of God is necessary to a proper understanding of all matters.
It is important, however, to regard the Bible in the proper light. It
was written by fallible men. It is not necessarily perfect, though it
is sufficient, and though there is no purpose in attempting to fix or
supplant it, for we are equally fallible with it writers. God made us
fallible beings, when he could have made us perfect, and similarly he
has chosen to reach to us through fallible writers rather than
infallible transmission.
The Bible should be transmitted to all people in their own language.
This is markedly different from the traditions of virtually every
other world religion. The Vedas is read in Sanskrit, always. The
Koran is read in Arabic, always. The Torah (in the Jewish religion)
is read in Hebrew. In all the cases, and others, the spiritual book,
in its language, is important. To Christians, however, it is the
message, and not the words or the language themselves, which are
important. So, we translate the book into whatever language is
necessary for understanding. It is important to remember, however,
that fideltiy to the originals (in Hebrew, Aramaic, and Koine Greek)
is essential. Translators must not be bound by attempts to remain
"faithful" to previous versions' use of the language of translation,
nor should they be expected to preserve doctrine. They are to
translate the words, as much as possible, into another language,
without attempting to repeat past errors or encourage current
mistakes.
Ultimately, Scripture and the reader guided by the Holy Spirit, are
the only guide to interpretation of Scripture. All directions,
exegetic techniques, and church decrees must ultimately be subject to
the Scripture and the right of private Spirit-filled interpretation.
No individual has the sure lock on the truth of interpretation of
Scripture or any other matter, and should never attempt to impose a
particular interpretation on others. We are all fallible, and must
remain mindful of that.
--
Michael I. Bushnell \ This above all; to thine own self be true
LIBERTE, EGALITE, FRATERNITE \ And it must follow, as the night the day,
mike@unmvax.cs.unm.edu /\ Thou canst not be false to any man.
CARPE DIEM / \ Farewell: my blessing season this in thee!jhpb@garage.att.com (06/05/90)
> No individual has the sure lock on the truth of interpretation of > Scripture or any other matter, and should never attempt to impose a > particular interpretation on others. We are all fallible, and must > remain mindful of that. I should like to see this proved from ecclesiastical history. Where is this doctrine to be found among the Fathers of the Church? Do we not find just the opposite? Joe Buehler [When carrying out discussions between Catholics and Protestants, we've got to find a way to go beyond Catholics citing the Father and Protestants citing the Bible. The basic problem is that there are two different sources of authority. To simply cite your own source isn't going to settle anything. I'm not sure whether Joe is doing this tongue in cheek, but it's surely an appropriate response to all the Protestant postings that cite Scripture without showing any signs of the differences in attitude towards Scripture among Catholics and Protestants. I'm not suggesting that Protestants should give up that authority. Indeed I believe tradition has been shown to be useful as a guide but a broken reed when used as any kind of final arbiter. But my I suggest that if we're to have any kind of reasonable discussion we've got to at least take into account the perspectives that others are coming from. --clh]
mike@turing.cs.unm.edu (Michael I. Bushnell) (06/07/90)
In article <Jun.5.00.04.03.1990.16457@athos.rutgers.edu> jhpb@garage.att.com writes: > No individual has the sure lock on the truth of interpretation of > Scripture or any other matter, and should never attempt to impose a > particular interpretation on others. We are all fallible, and must > remain mindful of that. I should like to see this proved from ecclesiastical history. Where is this doctrine to be found among the Fathers of the Church? Do we not find just the opposite? It would be quite unlikely that this could be proved from ecclesiastical history, in the sense you require. For, you see, this is a statement that, ultimately, ecclesiastical history is not an authoritative guide to its future. Any Father who said what I did, and attempted to impose it on future generations, as an interpretation of Scripture, would be oxymoronic. In fact, we do find just the opposite among the Fathers of the Church. That's one of the reason that I don't use the Fathers of the Church as a standard of doctrine. -mib -- Michael I. Bushnell \ This above all; to thine own self be true LIBERTE, EGALITE, FRATERNITE \ And it must follow, as the night the day, mike@unmvax.cs.unm.edu /\ Thou canst not be false to any man. CARPE DIEM / \ Farewell: my blessing season this in thee!