So Long, Sola?

Great article by Mr. Paton. I think it’s worth mentioning that not all Reformation leaders (Martin Luther included) raised up only one “sola”. In fact, there were THREE.

1. Scripture alone (sola scriptura)
2. Faith alone (sola fide)
3. Christ alone (solus christus)

(Some even included “Grace alone” and “Glory to God alone” to make Five Solas.)

The point being, sola scriptura wasn’t intended to stand on its own. Scripture is not whole without the mystery of faith and the presence of Christ acting in our lives. Neither faith nor Christ are housed solely in Scripture – they are living, breathing, and active. The Emerging notion that we are in a post-Reformation phase that rejects sola scriptura is a myth…because the Reformation was NEVER only about sola scriptura in the first place.

That said, I understand that some modern (mostly American) Christian groupings have taken sola scriptura out of context and used it to form their argument for Biblical literalism. To that point, I agree with Paton and others. The fundamentalist / Christianist notion of Scripture authenticating itself is folly. However, just because some modern Christians have perverted and misused the Reformation idea of sola scriptura doesn’t mean that the Reformation was only about sola scriptura.

It’s probably just an argument of semantics. I believe it’s worth noting that sola scriptura is unhealthy…which is why many Protestant Christians have never viewed sola scriptura in a vacuum, but as part of a group of 3 or 5 “solas”.

A few points to consider:

1) Sola scriptura was not normative for all of Protestantism. While Luther and Calvin deviated more radically from the Catholic way in raising scripture above tradition, the Anglicans retained a healthy and necessary role for tradition.

2) Wesley did not so much expand the Lutheran-Calvinistic sola scriptura to a quadrilateral as he expanded the three-legged stool of his own Anglican tradition. Anglicanism held that there are three sources of authority when it came to matters of doctrine and practice and these are tradition, scripture and reason.

3) That Wesley adds experience to these other three has as much to do with his own place within modernity as anything else. I do not want to say that Wesley is a Kantian, since he and Kant were contemporaries, but what he does in adding experience is to give credence to the Kantian insight that both reason and experience play very necessary roles when it comes to our knowledge of the world.

4) Adding creation to Wesley’s quadrilateral would be redundant since all knowledge of creation or any sort of natural theology that is derived from creation is only possible through experience and rational analysis of this experience. Thus, experience and reason together already get us anything that creation might add as another source of authority.

5) Adding intuition and imagination is the distinctly postmodern move in your epistemology. While I would resist such a move, I cannot think of any reasons for why at this moment.

I value the fact that these sorts of conversations are happening in the Emerging church, but I also think that a thorough study of the resources available within Anglicanism would spare much of the work that people are trying to do now (re-inventing the wheel as it were).

Perhaps the distinctly postmodern move in all of this is to realize that we are all embedded in a context or tradition and are incapable of a context or tradition-less view. This is truly more problematic for Lutheran and Calvinistic Protestants than for Anglicans because they still hold that tradition is an important source of authority. If conversations like this get people to realize that even the notion of “sola scriptura” imposes itself within a tradition and draws its authority from a tradition (the tradition of Lutheran-Calvinistic Protestantism) then I applaud it.

Thank you.

Erik
I think you have a good point in that the problem is mainly about Sola scriptura being taken into a vacuum. BTW, I mentioned the 5 solas you do, and you are right in suggesting that SS should not stand alone. If Emergents in fact do reject SS, it should be SS in isolation from the other foundations which is rejected, rather than just SS.

However, I would still challenge us to examine very closely the implications of “sola”ising anything.

Todd
My main reason for considering Creation is based on the Creation Spirituality tradition (as described by Matthew Fox for example), as well as much new cosmology (Brian Swimme, Rupert Sheldrake, Thomas Berry). I would not reduce Creation to reason, or experience. Ideas such as “The heavens declare the Glory of God”, and “The Rocks themselves shall cry out” suggest that Nature herself reveals God.

I’m quite curious as to why you cannot think of any reasons NOT to include intuition and imagination. There seems to be a liminality here, which I think is full of potential for thought and reflection.

Thanks for your pointer to Anglican resources: can you name a few specifics?

Your last point, “that we are all embedded in a context or tradition and are incapable of a context or tradition-less view” is vital to this whole debate. This may prove to become a key virtue of the Emergent movement. There are things we are getting wrong no doubt, but at least we are trying to be philosophically honest from the start.

Todd, your response is exactly what I would have hoped for. You have added to the good value to the conversation, thank you.

I am grateful, encouraged and inspired. Thank you for sharing this conversation!

I think Luther’s use of “solas” was indicative of a larger tendency to frame concepts as juxtapositions. One of his phrases that we Lutherans reference is his understanding that we are “simultaneously sinner and saint”. So too, when you make a list of 3-5 “solas”, you are giving credence to the notion that faith is bigger than our human brains can comprehend. Perhaps it reflects a rhetorical style that cannot be fully comprehended by a modernist’s limited capacity for plurality.

But Erik, isn’t the problem still there if we have any solas at all?

Multiple sola’s are better than just one, but any sola-raising at all will still lead to problems of exclusion.

But I do like your assertion that modernism has a “limited capacity for plurality” ... well put.

Nic,

Thank you for your response. As far as specific Anglican resources are concerned, I have found James E. Griffiss’ “The Anglican Vision,” to be incredibly helpful. My wife and I were involved in an Episcopal church for close to two years (after having been in an Emergent-style house church for close to three years). I started to look into Anglicanism as much as I could and found this book to succinctly summarize the distinctively Anglican way. Especially pertinent are the writings of Richard Hooker who first articulated not only the three-legged stool of scripture, reason (which already included human understanding and experience), and tradition, but also Anglicanism as the via-media or middle way between Roman Catholicism and Protestantism. When I read about this I thought that it is something that all Emergents should read.

I am now in the process of becoming Eastern Orthodox because I doubt whether Anglicanism has the resources to resist cultural modernity. It seems to me that it is becoming increasingly overrun by secularism and liberalism (which is a worry I also have for Emergent, not necessarily now, but in the future since so much of the path they are on has already been tread by the Anglicans). The one key problem that I have with the via-media is that it is only possible to hold onto both Roman Catholicism and Protestantism by being purposefully vague about theology and doctrine. But it is precisely this vagueness that encourages a steady erosion of the traditional faith handed down from those who came before us. Because Anglicanism has been purposefully vague about its own theology and doctrines (choosing practices and the Book of Common Prayer as their source of unity instead), they lack the resources to oppose the liberalizing tendency that has threatened them for hundreds of years. Here it is not even necessary to talk about the current debates around sexuality, but simply to point back two hundred years to when the church was overrun with Deists. In more contemporary times, someone like John Shelby Spong can deny the divinity of Christ, the incarnation, and a bodily resurrection and still enjoy his full status as a bishop. These are tragedies that I believe can be traced back to fuzzy thinking.

When it comes to imagination, intuition, and creation the reason that I am hesitant to admit them as sources of authority is that all of our ideas come from somewhere. What is intuitive to us is formed against the backdrop of our culture at large, which, by and large, has not been informed by the Gospel of Christ. My fear is that by including intuition we will be opening the door for our culture to change the Church, rather than the Church itself inculturating us into a new culture, that of the people of God.

I believe that the same would go for imagination. Imagination is a faculty of our thinking whereby we creatively combine ideas that we have gotten elsewhere, largely through experience. But just because we are able to create new ideas does not mean these ideas should be normative for our understanding of God. If God is transcendent then the category of revelation is paramount. I do not see imagination as a type of revelation.

What you say about Creation has some merits. I agree that we need a new paradigm for how we relate to the created world, and hopefully a more mystical paradigm. I do think though that we truly view creation when we view it through the experience of the Church and not vice versa (an example of this can be found in Alexander Schmemann’s “For the Life of the World,” where he identifies the moment of the Eucharist as the moment when we again see creation as it was meant to be seen, as a gift from God that puts us in communion with Him). So I would not want to raise it up to the same level as tradition, scripture, and reason (but as I think about it now, the Orthodox might not even raise reason up to the same level as tradition and scripture given the primacy of negative theology in the Eastern understanding of God).

Thank you again for your thoughts. Peace of Christ.

While I would consider myself Emergent, many in the conservative Reformed tradition I come out of are horrified specifically because of the Emergent view of scripture.

I feel like the question isn’t whether the entire Bible has authority or is completely true, but how it’s authority functions and how its various genres and rhetorical features function as truth. These questions are far from being answered and require a lot of work. As a starting point, it’s right to say that the Bible as a whole is a story rather than a Christian-life manual or a set of true propositions, but this doesn’t mean it has “errors.”

Reading Lesslie Newbigin and N. T. Wright has helped me understand how the authority of the Scriptures function as narrative. At the same time, whatever differences I might have with Paton and McLaren on the doctine of Scripture, it would not make me break ecclesiastical fellowship with them, as many conservatives do.

Nic, I think that three or five “solas” taken together invoke the mystery involved with trying to understand God. Like the Holy Trinity, they are stated in a rather irrational way (from the standpoint of purely rational thinking), yet this is the best way to express our understanding. It wrankles me that so many “sola scriptura” advocates have taken on modernistic rationalism and insist on squeezing their theology through it; systems of rationalizations and logic which (while logical in a certain sense) end up being selected proofs which result in a non-loving praxis. I like the ancient paridoxical descriptions of God and faith. There is tension and mystery there, but it sure beats the wrong kind of certainty any day.

You’ve made some excellent points, Nic! It seems to me that the problem is actually neither “scriptura” nor “sola” but the way it has been used in contradiction to what the biblical narrative is telling us through both its form and content. The necessary deconstruction of the terms can only target what we’ve made of Scripture and is empowered by the conviction and guidance of the Holy Spirit using the same Scripture to lead us down a different path. And in doing so, the Word of God uses its own inherent power and authority, not the one we choose or refuse to attribute to it!

Solong Sola- Hello Heresy

So Joe- the heresy comes from what? Turning away from sola scriptura? sola fide? solus christus?

Todd
You are thorough!

You have got me thinking about imagination and intuition as categories of knowledge. My assertion/suggestion is offered in the context of the poetic and the creative, rather than the theological. That is my bias, calling, gifting, and it won’t necessarily work for others whose identity is different.

Also, if we are steeped in scripture, that will affect how imagination operates… I have a very positive view on it, while for someone else imagination without the guidence of scripture might be destructive. For a while now I have become aware that I use the words faith and imagiantion interchangeably. This might be a challenge for those less “eccentric”.

It’s perhaps like the improvising musician who improvises based on a certain mastery of fundamentals… breaking the rules once they are learned?

The last point I’d like to make regarding Creation is I think panentheistically, with a high degree of Gods being imminant in the cosmos rather than transcendant, which seemingly is a difference of our perspectives. Though I would expect the Orthodox tradition to give imminance high regard?

Once again, thanks for your insights.

Bill
Your placing of fellowship above differences of interpretation is encouraging. Our unity is not a matter of intellectual conformity. Conversation, with a range of views, is a key aspect of friendship.

Sage
As I suggested, I think sola – exclusion – even with many of them, isn’t a good starting point. However, I see that your goal is to invoke mystery, and so I think if “multisolaizing” aids that for you then its a good thing. As you say, the attempt to remove paradox via systems of rationalisation – the wrong kind of certainty – has done injury to Faith and to Love. Thanks for bringing mystery to our attention.

Joe,
Sage has a point. If you have serious concerns that questioning Sola scriptura is heretical, you will need to present a few more ideas than a simple naysay.

Josh
What strikes me in what you say is that the Word of God posesses inherent power and authority, and this is beyond how it has been used or misused in theological frameworks, or evolved into something not originally intended over time, like Sola has. Thanks for your comment.

2Tim. 3:16
The Bible is the highest, not the only, authority. We are to test all teaching against scripture(1Jn. 4:1-2)...be it theology or science or whatever discipline you may endeavor. This means that other disciplines of study are noble. However, when certain conclusions are drawn that contradict scripture, scripture’s teaching must supercede man’s theories…evolution, psychology, etc. The danger comes from discrediting what scripture clearly teaches in order to make us, or those around us “feel” better about themselves. The point of Jesus life was to deny ourselves, take up our cross, and follow Him(Luke 9:23-24), as He willingly denied Himself to become man and die for the sins of mankind. Scripture(segmented or in totality) is always sufficient for the believer. Luther, Wesley…pick a theologian, these are good resources, but scripture is still “God-breathed”. Everything else is just man’s opinion/interpretation.

Nic,

i liked your post very much. For the most part i get what you are saying, but could you please excuse my ignorance and explain what a ‘high view of scripture’ is v. a ‘low view of scripture’?

Much appreciated!

EP

XPunk
Yes its a good question, I’d not class it as ignorent. Now you ask, I realise it’s a bit of an evangelical “badge of belonging” used to differentiate evangelicals from liberals, and used predominantly by conservatives, in a perjorative manner, that is, prescriptively, of the opposite camp.

What it’s trying to say is high = not explaining away or undermining the authority of scripture. And low = doing just the opposite – undermining it’s authority by referring to all kinds of “extrabiblical” explainations eg. psychology, mythology, or politics for instance.

So perhaps then the so-called high view might be called the self authenticting view, and the low view might be just what I am advocating – a wider frame of reference based not on “sola” but inclusive of many aspects? But as an evangelical, I dont like the idea of being labeled low. Maybe it’s just me being “religulous”!

Actually xpunk, it’s a great question: anyone else want to step up?

As an Orthodox Christian I see “sola scriptura” as being a bit like someone who comes across the constitution of a bank, with its memorandum and articles of association—let’s call it the “Second National Bank”—and then decides to open up a branch of the bank, and starts taking deposits from the public on the strength of the documents he has found. One day the actual bank whose documents he has found is going to discover what he is doing, and object.

Jesus did not write a book, he left a community, the Church, which, among other things produced documents that were later collected as the Bible. But it was the community, guided by the Holy Spirit, that “continued in the apostles’ teaching and fellowship, the breaking of bread and the prayers” (Acts 2:42), and the Orthodox Church believes that it is that community, the “one, holy, catholic and apostolic church”, that has continued in those four things in unbroken continuity from that day to this.

Matthew Fox? Can’t we do better than Matthew Fox? Why do we need to resort to Matthew Fox when we have St. Francis, Wendell Berry and N.T. Wright?

Scott (#18):

When I have studied the history of the Church, I have been forced to conclude that scripture alone is not able to protect us from heresy.

If you go back to the Arian controversy, you will see that one of the reasons that Arius’ ideas were so persuasive is that he utilized scripture very effectively (scripturally, we also know that Satan is effective at using scripture for his own ends). The controversies that are addressed in the ecumenical councils are not whether scripture is authoritative or not, but rather, how scripture should be interpeted. This is where the early Rule of Faith that had been handed down by the Apostles and was formalized in the Nicene Creed comes in. The Rule of Faith and the Creed teach us how to interpret scripture. If we interpret scripture apart from these, we interpret it from outside of the community of the faithful and it is likely that we will go astray.

Again, one of the reasons that Arius and his followers were so persuasive is because they knew how to use the scriptures, and they also saw that the scriptures alone do not commit us to orthodox doctrine. They argued against the creedal use of the word “homousious” or “of one substance” on the grounds that this word is extra-biblical. But what Athanasius and others at the first council recognized is that this word needed to be used to protect the integrity of the faith and the right use of the scriptures.

Tradition is the only thing that is able to protect us from heresy. And the Eastern Orthodox Church would also add that tradition is the only thing that can protect us from the proliferation of Protestant divisions and fracturing that occur when everyone interprets the scriptures on their own, as they see fit. Tradition normalizes certain interpretations which is very necessary today to protect against the liberalizing tendencies of modernity. What is ironic about fundamentalism is that in denying the authority of tradition, they give up the most powerful weapons to combat heresy and liberalism.

Peace of Christ.

Nic:

Great reflections!

Regarding Panentheism, I think that the temptation is always to push it one way or the other; to emphasize God’s immanence or transcendence—it is very hard to hold onto both.

One thing that I find interesting about the logic of panentheism is that it is a sort of synthesis between pantheism (God is immanent) and traditional monotheism (God is transcendent) in that it asserts that God is both immanent and transcendent, but precisely because it is both, it ends up that one is more true than the other (this is the perniciousness of the logic of either/or). If God is both immanent and transcendent then the picture of traditional monotheism is more true because there is a real sense in which God transcends the world, and is beyond the world, even if it is true that God is also present. I do believe that this element of transcendence is absolutely necessary when it comes to a commitment to the possibility of real relationship between God and His creation. Without this initial difference there can be no communion, but only union (all is God and God is all).

You are right to see in Eastern Orthodoxy a more panentheistic conception of God than has been the case in Western Christendom. Right now I am still struggling through how to think about this. I said before that I think that the category of revelation is supremely important for our understanding of God. The reason for this is that I appreciate the Jewish insight that something tremendous happened at Sinai—God gave us the law, he provided a means for us to live in community with Him and to communicate back to Him an obedient (which also means loving) response. The action of God in revealing His Law opens up our own action in response which is obedience and love.

But this is also true of the Incarnation. Something marvelous happens when Christ, who is fully God, becomes a Human being, taking on Human flesh and dwelling among us. If we over-emphasize God’s immanence, then the Incarnation is not something marvelous at all, but is just more of the same. I am trying to recover the shock of the early Jews and Greeks who could not imagine that the infinite and eternal God would enter Creation and History and become a part of it. For Kierkegaard this is the absolute paradox—the Eternal entering history, the Infinite becoming finite; this is the scandal of particularity.

What is true of the giving of the Law and the Incarnation is true of the category of revelation more generally: it must fully embrace the scandal of particularity.

I think that it is good to recognize God’s activity in the created world, and I do think that creation is to partake in the redemption, that is, that our redemption will consist in our receiving all of creation as the gift of God that it has always been intended to be (along with our reverence, respect, and right use of this gift which would imply a robust environmental ethic), but I also think that we can over-emphasize the immanence of God and deviate from the wonder of God’s action in redeeming and constituting the nation of Israel and then the Church of Christ. Judaism and Christianity are historical faiths precisely because they locate within history events that are necessary for our salvation. It is not enough to go out into the world and meditate upon it or upon ourselves. We must meditate upon God’s actions in history to save the whole world and reconcile it to Himself, and then we must participate in this action.

Todd,
To an extant, I agree. In addition to what you call tradition, we must also use discernment from the Holy Spirit, as Paul describes in 1 Corinthians, so that we can determine who the “wolves” are among us. Satan does twist scripture. When he does, it always points to our gain(“surely you will not die…you will be like God”), instead of directing us to give God our worship. Too much value is placed on self-esteem now a days. After all, pride is what got Satan thrown out of heaven to begin with.

In Giving We Receive,
Scott

Hi Todd – this is a goldmine!

Panentheism is by (my) definition a bearer of the paradox. The more dualistic our thought, the less lightly we will be to embrace it.

I’m pleased to hear you say “I’m still struggling through how to think about this”. One might in your position of learning be tempted to think you had the “problems” resolved.

“Recovering the shock” is a great phrase of yours. It means engaging fully in imagination, in order to appreciate something gone by. It also underscores my motivation for elevating Imagination up the value list.

Imagination is if you like when our faith goes “into the black” to use the accounting metaphor. When we are all about conformity, assimilating facts, and correcting our thoughts, our faith could be seen to be “in the red”. But the whole goal of this discipline, living like God, and being “scriptural”, is to ascend into Gods creativity. So yes, we need to train and learn, but the outcome is the Glorious Imaginal-Faith Freedom of the children of God.

“If we over-emphasize God’s immanence, then the Incarnation is not something marvelous at all, but is just more of the same” – well here I would posit that we discover the extraordinaryness of Gods being in the ordinary, the marvellous fullness of God within, and not without, our lives in the created order.

But your best bit here Todd, is the idea of “embracing the scandal of particularity”. I am extremely excited by this, and it resonates with my own reservations about globalisation, virtuality and the universal. You must have read “Spaces for the sacred” by Phillip Sheldrake?

Incarnation is indeed, all about particularity. Jesus came at a particular point in time to a particular place in space, within a particular group of people.

It is this very scandal – incarnation and particularity – that gives me hope that I cannot over-emphasise the immanent God. The only way to cross into pure pantheism – God IS everything – is to deny the personhood of God. But particularity is only possible because of the essential personhood of the Creator.

Confused? I know I am, in fact I’m delirious…

Steve (21)
I like your banking / second-hand authority metaphor, and your assertion that Jesus left a community, not a book. It’s actually obvious when you think about it, or rather, when you “stop thinking in certain ways” about it. If you place yourself back in Jesus day, you would have been impressed by a God-person and the community he built, much more than a set of books.

But isn’t it being a bit romantic to see the Orthodox Church as having been in “unbroken continuity”? This may be true of the institution, but surely it has seen a fair share of disunity? It’s not that I know, it just sounds a little over optimistic. Correct me if I’m wrong…

Jesus is the point of the Bible. Actually, He IS the Bible(JOHN 1:1). The Bible helps guide the community. Jesus left us BOTH a church and the Bible.

Scott,
What is the bible?

I’ll narrow down the question:
Is the artifact of scripture (a Holy Bible) equivalent to the Logos, the living Word of God?

Is everyone else on here perfectly comfortable with Nic’s suggestion that following Matthew Fox is a good idea for the Church today?

Hi Michael
OK, Matthew Fox into the ring then. For perspective, I mentioned him just in passing in comment 4, in order to point to the “Creation Spirituality” tradition, which takes the Good Cosmos (Gen 1, ending with ”... and they felt no shame.”) as it’s starting point, not the Bad Fall (Gen 3 starting with “Now the serpent was more crafty …”).

Fox’s maverick, generous and at times rancorous message really helped yank me out of an evangelically shaped dead end.

If I was in a more critical or “orthodox” space, I might want to knock all sorts of holes in his theology, I suppose. But for me, his writing encourages celebration. He is a very good generalist, and that is a vocation in short supply.

Tell us about your reservations…

Sage,

What is the Bile?? I can’t believe that question needs asked here among people claiming to love Jesus. The Bible is the inspired word of God(2Timothy 3:16), and is His revelation to all people of Himself, and His plan of salvation. Jesus took the discples through the whole Old Testament-that means Jesus told them the “narrative”, and showed them that it was all about Him(See Luke 24). In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God(John 1:1) Scripture says plenty about itself: Proverbs 30:5-6, John 17:17, the aforementioned 2Timothy 3:16. Scripture is sufficient. That is one of the beautiful things about God. The Bible is life and light to all belivers, or “followers”.

This whole “conversation” is only relevant if you don’t believe that scripture is God-given and higher in authority than any other author or theologian. Meditate on scripture, and ask the Holy Spirit to help you gain understanding(1 Corinthians 2) By the way, that passage also addresses the “wisdom” of men. I hope the references Included herein have helped you answer the question.

Merry Christmas and May God Bless You, Sage.

Scott, I do not think you understand Sages question. You need to answer the rephrased version (30).

I appreciate that you love the bible and hold it in high regard. To question it like we do, does not mean we are trying to discredit it, but rather that we too take it seriously enough to dive into its ever unfolding truth.

You also need to accept that as posting on a blog, and as presenting your thoughts about God and the Bible, you too are an author and theologian, subject to exactly the same rules you demand we observe.

Scott, why are you being so combative … No one is attacking you?

Nic,

I apologize for the misrepresentation. I don’t mean to seem combative. I simply have a deep love for the scripture, and the expression of my passion for it can seem combative. I don’t mean to represent myself as a theological scholar, as I’m not sure what Sage meant by the Logos. By Living Word of God, does that mean God is still revealing himself in this day? I believe He is.

As to my standards in this discussion. My concern in discussing scripture, is that the majority of the discussion seems to center on writings other than the Bible. I do find the points made here insightful, but I have some concerns. Since I have, hopefully, clearly stated my perspective, I’d like to ask you, Nic, a few questions, since this is your original post. I look forward to your response.

1. Am I off the mark on the Logos? I have never been to seminary, so that is a new term for me.

2. The Arian Contraversy was centered on the Trinity, mainly, correct?

3. Where does your faith lie?

4. Please, explain your thoughts on what role postmodernism plays in the body of Christ today.(that’s probably a totally new article, I know)

I sincerely look forward to your reply. Again, I apologize to ALL for my perceived combativeness…my passion gets the better of me sometimes.

In Christ,

Scott

Hi Scott (and all),
my motivation behind the question is to see if we can have a conversation about the nature of the bible and scripture here, or not. I’ll repeat it here for clarity-
“Is the artifact of scripture (a Holy Bible) equivalent to the Logos, the living Word of God?”

Sage,

The short answer is Yes. God’s continuous revelation, in my experience, always lines up with the “God-breathed, written Word”. Jesus Christ is the Same, Yesterday, today and forever.

Thanks Scott. I appreciate your passion for holy scripture. In my own walk, I am almost 50 and for the first time in my life I really LOVE reading the bible, and I appreciate it more every day.

I’ve been trying to figure out how to enter this conversation, because as a Lutheran Christian we simply don’t talk this way about scripture. “High view?” “Low view?” “Inerrant?” “Inspired?” Huh?

My seminary education helped me understand that God’s Word is a life-changing event, something that shatters all our preconceived notions and opens us to a deeper experience of the living Christ. Yes, scripture plays a role – as the primary witness to this experience of God’s Word. But so do proclamation, conversation, study (of all kinds), prayer, and even simply beholding the creation (see Psalm 8 for guidance on that one).

For me as a Lutheran, scripture is not “inerrant” – Luther pointed out that it has problems and inconsistencies. It’s “inspired” insofar as it is read with the eyes of faith (Sola Fide anyone?). As for “high and low views” of scripture, that’s good old Greek proof-texting, irrelevant to the sort of truth that only narrative can convey.

To bring it back around to the Solas, I’ve got to agree with Nic that this is why they are multiple. God’s Word is too all-encompassing to funnel down to a little paper and ink. It’s too big to funnel down even to a couple thousand years of testimony and witness to Christ. And it’s too generous to leave any of us out (Sola Gratia).

Sage,
Now I fully understand the question. The Bible is God’s revelation…written to us. The triune God is a spirit, the omnicient, omnipotent, omnipresent creator. The two entities are separate, but communal. For me, the Bible(paper and ink) is the primary resource for God’s instruction, revealing Himself to us so that we can glorify Him and love one another. It works in conjunction with the Holy Spirit to instruct us in righteousness.

Ultimately, we each must seek God, and find the balance between His written revelation and His working in us. I hope the slightly longer answer is helpful.

P.S. Your name is quite appropriate, as you have “seasoned” this conversation very nicely.

Mark – thanks for entering anyhow from your excellant “What to toss” topic next door.

I’m interested that as a Lutheran your find some of our terms alien, thats instructive. Would you say your feeling reflects that of most Lutherans?

But you must have come across the idea that scripture is inerrant, sometime, someplace?

I like the breadth of your understanding of the Word.

Scott – I think Mark gives us a good picture of what the Logos implies when he says “God’s Word is too all-encompassing to funnel down to a little paper and ink”.

Lastly, Mark, I am interested in the name of your community – Wilderness Way. I am very inspired by the idea of spiritual rewilding, do you relate to that?

Scott – re your questions:

1. Briefly, I think your idea of Logos is too tied in with a library of writings we call the bible. I think it is far larger, more personal and more cosmic than that.

2. I can’t comment on the Arian controversy.

3. My faith is in God and God’s unfailing Love; why do you ask?

4. Well you need to spend time in the emergent conversation to get to grips with the role of postmodernity. All I will say is the world we live in has changed, and we need to be aware of that change if we are to remain Incarnate or relevant.

Thanks Scott for a thoughtful response. I think that describing the bible as a resource is a sensitive way to go.

Nic,

Thanks for your response. My 3rd question was simply because you raised it in your original article. I am new to the Emergent Conversation, so pelase have patience as I gain understanding to the actual questions being asked. I’m here to learn, and share my experience in my walk as well. I like to hear things directly from the source. Too many in the Fundamentalist circle rely on other people telling them what they should think about something(the EC), without listening to what the EC is actually saying. I like to obtain the information myself, then formulate how, or whether, something is beneficial to my spiritual growth or not. As I continue to learn, I hope my questions don’t come across as demeaning or offensive.

Thank You, again, for your response, and your graciousness.

Scott (#35):

I will try to answer a few of your questions, but I won’t say much about postmodernity.

1) Logos is a complicated word that signifies a whole host of things. In your Bible, in the first chapter of John, when it says “In the beginning was the Word,” what it is really saying is that in the beginning was the Logos. Logos means word, but in the context of Greek philosophy Logos is also Reason, or the ordering principle of the universe. So when I think of Jesus Christ as the Logos, or Word, I think of Him as the fulfillment of everything that Greek philosophy was pointing towards: Christ is the divine and rational ordering principle made flesh. Logos-theology was first taken up by the Jewish thinker Philo of Alexandria, and Justin Martyr was the first to Apologetically defend Christianity to the Romans by appealing to Christ as the Logos: the fulfillment of Greek philosophy. One of the interesting aspects of Logos theology is that it stresses that God creates according the the Logos, the Word, which is also testified to in the opening chapter of John, and which all makes a lot of sense to the Greeks.

2) The Arian controversy was centered on the person of Christ and how we are to understand His nature—is he really divine? This controversy was addressed during both the first and the second Ecumenical councils (gatherings of the whole Church). The first Ecumenical council approved the Nicene Creed, which was expanded during the Second Ecumenical council into what is known as the Niceno-Constantinopolitan Creed (which is the creed that is recited by most liturgical churches every Sunday). Both of these creeds are formulated in a Trinitarian way, but the controversy was not primarily about the Trinity (since no one was arguing about the Holy Spirit during the first council).

Arius claimed that Christ was a creature, or was created by God. His famous slogan that summed this up and that was put to songs in order to spread his views was, “There was a time when he was not.” Athanasius and others argued against Arius that Christ is fully God, that He is God made flesh (which is the position that all orthodox Christians believe today).

3) “I believe in one God, the Father Almighty, Maker of heaven and earth, and of all things visible and invisible. And in one Lord Jesus Christ, the only-begotten Son of God, begotten of the Father before all worlds; Light of Light, very God of very God; begotten, not made, being of one substance (homoousious) with the Father, by whom all things were made…”

These are truths that I would not have been able to come up with on my own. They are revealed. I was not a witness to the events by which these truths were revealed, and I must rely on the testimony of others. The scriptures are part of that testimony, but so is the community of the faithful, or the Church. We are absolutely dependent on the testimony of the Apostles and on those who received their teaching. This is precisely where the priority of the creeds should be emphasized because the creeds are expansions of the teaching that was handed down by the Apostles, and they are therefore normative for how to read and interpret the scriptures. The Nicene creed is an expansion of the Apostles’ creed which was a baptismal creed that was widely used in the early Church and which was a developed from the Rule of Faith, which was a short confession or formula that articulated the basic beliefs of Christianity. Without these resources, we are unable to interpret the scriptures in keeping with the Apostolic message, which means that we are liable to go astray like Arius did.

4) I believe that postmodernity is a secular and philosophical culture that offers its own challenges and opportunities to the Church as the body of Christ. Modernity was hardly friendly to the Church, and I am happy to be done with it, if that is truly the case. But it is not clear whether postmodernity is something new or just more of the same. Is it postmodernity or hypermodernity? Regardless, I think that the only way to resist cultural Modernity is to cling to a Church and tradition that has pre-modern resources. Since the rise of Protestantism and the rise of Modernity almost exactly coincide, Protestantism does not have these resources. It must either become more Catholic or more Orthodox. Either way, it must reclaim the history of the Church between 50 and 1500 AD.

Scott, you are very brave to venture into the fray here, and thank you for your honest questions. We are all trying to figure this out.

These are the resources that have shaped my thinking on this:

Christian History (& Biography) magazine

Issue 80, The First Bible Teachers: Reading Over the Shoulders of the Church’s Founding Fathers

Issue 85, Debating Jesus’ Divinity: The Council of Nicaea and Its Bitter Aftermath

Issue 96, The Hunger for Secret Knowledge (about Gnosticism and the early Church)

Whose Afraid of Postmodernism? by James K.A. Smith

All of these are really accessible and thoughtful discussions of these issues.

Todd,

Thank You.

Nic (#41),

Briefly, American Evangelicalism is the “new mainline” these days – we’ve all experienced in some measure the impact of the movement, and it’s caused Christians of all stripes to re-orient a bit in how they talk about their faith.

I grew up in a small-town Lutheran church in central Oregon that was largely isolated from the big revivals sweeping the country. Lutheran circles run tight in my experience, and while I can’t speak for every Lutheran’s experience of Evangelical theology, I can say that when I brought questions about evangelicalism to my college pastor, he’d say very simply, “We don’t typically talk that way. Here’s how I’d put it….”

Finally, regarding spiritual rewilding, that’s essentially what Wilderness Way is about. Reclaiming the Exodus experience in order for God to teach us once again who we are out of reach of human-created systems. An extremely difficult if not impossible task, but at least worth a try….

After reading this I was impressed with a few things.

1. He makes erroneous historical claims…

“Despite the canon being considered “closed”, Martin Luther in his reforms rejected the apocryphal books, still part of the canon for much of the church. While Luther emphasized scriptural authority, he rejected scriptures then current. And while he rejected Church authority, he accepted the rest of the canon which had been ratified by the church and passed on by that authority.”

The Apocrypha were formally canonized by the Roman Catholic ‘Church’ on April 8, 1546 A.D. at the Council of Trent as part of the counter-reformation, and a reaction to Luther.

2. He does not understand what Sola Scriptura means. He makes straw men arguments that presume Sola Scriptura refers to all matters of living, when it in fact only refers to matters of faith and godliness. It is not exclusive to anything in which it is not directly addressing.

3. He makes further presumptions about protestant/evangelicals which simply are not true, such as his claim that they are all modernist reductionists who read the bible as a law manual. Evangelical hermeneutics is in fact guided by the normal use of language principle, which seeks to read and understand each individual text according to the normative use of language and the conventions of that particular genre and time.

4. He makes false dilemmas. Correctly understanding scripture according to the normal use of language does not mean that you can not or should not draw out valid propositions, premises, laws, and systematic theologies. In fact Jesus destroys the Sadducees disbelief in the resurrection by pointing to a single verb tense in a historical narrative (mark 12:26). Apparently Nic would take issue with Jesus argument, since Jesus clearly does not understand the nature of scripture, and should be informed of the advanced emergent post-modern epistemology which has been enlightened to the dangers of the neophyte evangelicals unsophisticated propositional views (see, I can speak emergent-talk too). Furthermore he claims that Sola Scriptura is self-contradictory, as scripture does not speak of itself in the same terms. The fact is no one who has ever argued for Sola Scriptura has ever claimed that it is a biblical term, or that it concludes a ban on Systematic Theology. Sola Scriptura informs Systematics, it does not abolish it.

5. He makes genetic fallacies. He believes that if he can show that Sola Scriptura arose as a reaction that it is invalidated. This of course is untrue; the validity of Sola Scriptura has nothing to do with its origins, only its contents.

6. Like all emergent writing, it drips with pretension and platitude.

7. I am always struck by how emergents talk of inclusivity, but really they are a closed system. One writer goes on a pretensions, pedantic diatribe attacking a historical Christian belief, and the rest of them congratulate him/her, add their own 2 cents, which is equally as pretensions, and then they all congratulate themselves for how ground-breaking their conversation was. Real questioning, critiquing, evaluation, or opposition is immediately rejected as divisive, having no place in their conversation.

Aaron (#48),

Thanks for your thoughtful pushback. I appreciate you taking the time to give some thoughtful critique here. I think you do some damage to your argument by reading “pretentiousness” into the tone of the writing AND the comments and accusing “all emergent” writers of the same. (That’s just my gentle pushback for you.) I think Nic’s post is an example of “real questioning/critiquing/evaluation/opposition,” as is the helpful criticism of your comment. Both are welcome here, in my opinion.

Overall I really appreciate what you’ve written, and I hope Nic has time to wrestle with it and respond.

Shalom,
Steve K.

No, emergents are a remarkably homogenous group (despite their claims about themselves as being diverse), and pertention is one of their fundamental identifying characteristics. You claim to accept critique, than you should accept that one. The lexicon of emergent platitudes is out of control. Platitudes only exist when real though does not, so you should accept that critique as well. Good luck, I won’t visit here again.

Aaron,

I don’t think it’s wise to blindly accept a critique if it doesn’t match up with my experience of emergent Christianity. I hear where you’re coming from, but from my vantage point, I see a great deal of diversity of opinion and perspective. I don’t think you’ve invested yourself enough in the emerging church conversation to be able to see that. That’s fine.

I’m sorry that all you see are “platitudes” and not “real thought.” I respectfully disagree. You’ve brought some legitimate criticism here, and apparently my very minor pushback was enough to send you reeling from this comment thread (and the entire website, if your comment is correct). Again, I’m sorry to hear that.

You sound to me like someone who is angry and needs a place to vent—even if it’s at our expense. I say go ahead, let it all out.

Thanks to Steve and Aaron for this late flurry.

Aaron, I am prepared to address each of your points, but will do it only if you can persuade me that you will enter into the conversation. As it stands, you have said you will not be back. I am also quite happy to be proven wrong on any point – I made no claims at infallibility at all, I am just suggesting some potentially interesting directions for the debate. I am merely a scullary theologian, don’t forget.

This bomb-and-run tactic does no credit to any point of view. That you took the time to formulate an in depth set of questions but then won’t take any more time to persue them and take responsibility for them is a problem; it seems quite contradictory.

As Steve says, I/we am open to doing justice to your comment, but I await your promise to engage.

Does SOLA imply ALL? That is, is ALL scripture equally useful and true? It seems that invoking SOLA works out to mean that any verse holds water in its literal form. Eye for an eye, for example. Or cut off your hand if it offends. Where does it all stop?

Where does it all stop?
Shellfish. I think it stops with eating shrimp.

I don’t think that sola scriptura was intended to become what it has become- isolated from the other important aspects of faith, the other solas. But you will see it come up at the top of a whole lot of lists. Here is the top of a doctrinal statement from a University-

“The Bible, consisting of all the books of the Old and New Testaments, is the Word of God, a supernaturally given revelation from God Himself, concerning Himself, His being, nature, character, will and purposes; and concerning man, his nature, need and duty and destiny. The Scriptures of the Old and New Testaments are without error or misstatement in their moral and spiritual teaching and record of historical facts. They are without error or defect of any kind.”

I have just discovered that “Black Reforming Kid” Douglas K. Adu-Boahen has taken on my thoughts with some counter-emergent spunk at
http://blackreformingkid.wordpress.com/2008/12/22/so-long-what-the-emerging-rebellion-against-the-sufficiency-authority-exclusivity-and-necessity-of-scripture-part-3/

Pity he didn’t engage us directly, but I went over to his place with a piece of Emergent Pie on
http://blackreformingkid.wordpress.com/2008/12/16/sola_scriptura1/#comment-1940

I sincerely hope I am not “Raca”, and I hope even more that they don’t mean I am “Raca”.

Hi there Nic

It appears that I have missed out on a great conversation.

I was recently reminded of the scripture (ironically) from John 14 where Jesus promises the Holy Spirit and not a book!!

How do you view the work of the Holy Spirit in the context of a “post sola scriptura” era?

Andrew – thanks for the question.

Put simply, it is the Holy Spirit Who assisted the Reformers, Who inspired a return to the Bible, and Who is continuing to work in the Church and World to lead us into All Truth.

One direction IMO is to help us transcend modernity, as well as exclusivity in our thinking.

What Sola scriptura has become might be taken to amount to “Bibliolotory” or at least “Biblism”, and these things are hinderances in the evolving revelation of God.

What will distinguish God’s truth from other truths will be by the Spirit. The line (if there is one) is blurred and only spritual discernment will help us in an age of information overload, cliche, and deceptive pseudo-truths.

For example, the spirit is ushering in a return to narrative, a renewed awe for creation, and a generousity and ecumenism with great potential for unity.