From MEMRI:
On October 20, 2005, the Lebanese press reported that a delegation from the Presbyterian Church USA, headed by Father Nihad Tu’meh and with Robert Worley as its spokesman, visited southern Lebanon at the invitation of Hizbullah, and met there with the terrorist organization’s commander in southern Lebanon Nabil Qawuq…
A year previously, on October 17, 2004, a Presbyterian Church USA delegation visiting Lebanon also met with Qawuq. MEMRI TV translated excerpts from a report on the meeting that was aired by Hizbullah’s Al-Manar TV. During the meeting, church elder Ronald Stone said, “We treasure the precious words of Hizbullah and your expression of goodwill towards the American people. Also, we praise your initiative for dialogue and mutual understanding. We cherish these statements that bring us closer to you. As an elder of our church, I’d like to say that according to my recent experience, relations and conversations with Islamic leaders are a lot easier than dealings and dialogue with Jewish leaders.”…
It should also be noted that shortly after the October 20, 2005 meeting, a delegation of families of U.S. victims of 9/11 went to Lebanon met with Hizbullah Deputy Leader Sheikh Naim Qassem. The following are excerpts from reports in the Lebanese press on the October 20, 2005 meeting.
Hizbullah commander in south Lebanon Nabil Qawuq told the delegation: “Lebanon, like the other countries in the region, suffers from the [political] American storms that have hit the region and are threatening its stability. Any foreign patronage is a bad thing, and the American patronage over Lebanon is the worst, because it is pushing the region towards sectarian segregation. All Lebanese fear the chaos created by the American policy.”…
Delegation spokesman Robert Worley said: “We do not wish to defend the U.S. administration. We all elected the Democratic Party against the Republican Party. Rest assured that we will return to the U.S. in order to continue our activity for peace, and we want to hear about the charity activities and the cultural and social activities organized by Hizbullah in south [Lebanon]. The Americans hear in the Western media that Hizbullah is a terrorist organization, and they do not hear any other opinion. They know nothing about the party’s concern for the people of the south. We have suffered much pressure on the part of Jewish organizations in the U.S. because [of our help in] divesting corporations working with Israel. We want Jerusalem to be a united city, just as we encouraged the Palestinians and the Jews to work for peace, and we demanded that our administration adheres to this position.”
Will these people just shut up?
It’s one thing to say, as I have said, the Hizbullah is an Israeli problem and not necessarily an American priority. Hizbullah does not appear to actively target U.S. interests. That, of course, is the most charitable thing that can be said.
This level of effusion for this organization is just sick. Hizbullah, by the way, is Exhibit A as to why unmitigated Democracy in the Middle East is a bad idea. Hizbullah has 20 seats in parliament. Were elections not governed by strict ethnic apportionment rules in Lebanon (decidedly not ‘one man, one vote’), then Hizbullah might very well end up running the whole country. That would be a catastrophe for all of us.
Some statements by Hizbullah leaders sound almost reasonable. However, is that because they are having a change of heart and are morphing into a political organization? Or, are they simply learning to play Sinn Fein – a mask over an armed terrorist organization?
I am afraid the answer is probably the latter, not the former. I don’t want the U.S. involved in Lebanese affairs to the extent that we go to war with Hizbullah. But, that doesn’t mean that I either accept Hizbullah or approve of its actions.
“Will these people just shut up?”
+1
My former coreligionists. Putting the PC into PCUSA.
I can understand why some Americans seeking peace and understanding may want to go around the US government and reach out to middle-eastern peoples independently. In just the past several weeks we have learned that President Bush approved the use of White Phosphorous, a banned chemical weapon, during the siege of Fallujah, discussed bombing the headquarters in Qatar of Aljazeera, with Prime Minister Blair, and was told by the CIA on September 21, 2001 that there was no evidence linking Iraq to the 9-11 terrorist attacks, as the White House emphatically and repeatedly suggested during the run-up to war.
White phosphorous is a chemical weapon banned under the Geneva Convention which was used by the US Marines last November in Fallujah. When coming into contact with human skin, White Phosphurous can burn flesh down to the bone. Exactly these types of wounds were found on Iraqi civilians, both dead and alive, after the siege of Fallujah last year. US Marines who took part in the battle described WP as a good weapon for flushing the insurgents out of bunkers, but they certainly must have known that there were civilians interspersed among the insurgents.
The British newspaper The Daily Mirror on Tuesday that a secret British memo demonstrates that George W. Bush wanted to bomb Aljazeera’s offices in Doha, Qatar, in spring of 2004. The subject came up with Prime Minister Tony Blair of the UK, and Blair is said to have argued Bush out of it. Plotting to assassinate civilian journalists in a friendly country is certainly against the law and an act of terrorism as heinous as anything Al Qaeda has ever done. Yet this is what President Bush wanted to do.
Finally, the National Journal is reporting, “Ten days after the September 11, 2001, terrorist attacks on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon, President Bush was told in a highly classified briefing that the U.S. intelligence community had no evidence linking the Iraqi regime of Saddam Hussein to the attacks and that there was scant credible evidence that Iraq had any significant collaborative ties with Al Qaeda, according to government records and current and former officials with firsthand knowledge of the matter.
http://nationaljournal.com/about/njweekly/stories/2005/1122nj1.htm
Dean, here is the reprint policy of the National Journal:
reprints
Also, the first paragraphs read as if they were professionally written. You should cite those sources as well.
Also, assuming we should trust the veracity of the pieces as much as you do (admitedly a huge assumption), it still does not justify meeting with terrorists. But the PCUSA action is characteristic of the religious left. Religious leftists did the same thing in WWII (see: Auschwitz, and Yesterday’s Religious Left.)
The religious left’s blindness to the existence of real evil is even more certain than the secular left. OPF made the same mistake in “A Plea for Peace” when they attempted to cast American soldiers as terrorists and attribute a murderous pathology to American society. It’s called moral equivalency. Don’t fall for it.
Dean,
I have zippo problem criticizing Bush. You know that, you’ve read me do it. I have no problem distancing myself from our policies in Iraq and the broader Middle East. Among friends and family in Poland, I was more than happy to point out that not all Americans, including me, were supporters of Bushian policies.
Your information is, in my opinion, factually correct, with the exception that WP is a banned chemical weapon. I agree that it has been previously classed as a chemical weapon by the U.S. government. It is a nasty bit weapon when used for ‘shake and bake.’ I would NEVER want to order its use in an urban area like Fallujah, which still contained a large number of civilians. Males of military age were prohibited from fleeing, even if they were innocent. Women and children were let out, but the men were usually turned around by troops. That meant that some of them were burned to death or suffocated by toxic smoke, or blown to bits by HE rounds from 155 MM mortars, or died in any number of other ways. Bad stuff, all around.
All that being said, that still doesn’t excuse meeting with Hizbullah in this context. Hizbullah also engages in actions that are morally reprehensible. This delegation excuses Hizbullah’s actions while attacking those of the U.S.
Such moral blindness makes it appear that the group is motivated by pure anti-Americanism. This group should have attacked both Hizbullah and the U.S. and called on ALL sides to refrain from targeting civilians and the use of HE rounds or CAS (close air support) or IEDs in civilian areas. That appears to not have happened.
Note 6 Private Groups may not interfere with the foreign polic of the U.S.
It is illegal for any individual or private group to attempt to act on behalf of the United States in the conduct of its foreign policy or interfere with the conduct of U.S. foreign policy. The religious Left is aware of this and it dances on the edge of violating that principle. I can think of no further proof of the fact that PCUSA is no longer even a church but simply a leftist political organization.
Missourian what do expect from a church that has given up on a pure Gospel proclamation and instead replaced it with a religion of anthropology.
The PCUSA’s problem arises from buying into the philosophical children of Feuerbach, who placed “man” as the centeral purpose of religion. Thus, promoting an idea that “man” must work to resolve all conflict and desire. God then, is reduced to being only man’s projection of those unfulfilled desires.
The PCUSA has given up on the Incarnation and have become in essence Christian atheists.
Breaking My Rule on Theological Comments
Jerry, I have copied and saved this quote. Unfortunately, I lost the identification of the author. (SMART!!) I think it expresses the truth. I think I got it the Pontifications website. Anyway, my conclusion is that the “root cause” is that “sola scriptura” just doesn’t work in practice. I was raised in the UMC but am no longer a member. I still respect John Wesley but he wouldn’t be a member of UMC either.
BEGIN ANONYMOUS QUOTE:
Unless you have just tuned in, it will come of no surprise to you when I state that I believe that classical Reformation Protestantism is doomed. Reformation Protestantism is doomed because it is structurally incapable of saying No to secularism, heresy, and unbelief, except by recourse to schism and the formation of new denominations. I would expect the mainline denominations to continue in some form or anotherâ??probably as small communities of neo-gnosticism and political activism. I also expect Protestant fundamentalism to continue to thrive. Whatever else it offers, fundamentalism does offer clarity. Evangelicalism, on the other hand, is an open question. It really does not know which way it wants to jump: whether off the fundamentalist cliff or the experiential-pietist cliff. In some ways American evangelicals sound a bit like the biblical theology movement of fifty years ago, only with praise bands in their sanctuaries.
The future of catholic Christianity thus lies where else but with the two traditions that are truly catholic — Catholicism and Orthodoxy. Both traditions deny the formal sufficiency of the Bible. Both reject the sola scriptura of Protestantism. Both insist that the Scriptures are to be interpreted through the living Tradition of the Church. And for this reason, both communions have the structural capacity to say No to modernity and to maintain, by the grace of God, the core doctrines of Christianity.
In his book Scripture in Tradition, Orthodox theologian John Breck argues that the Bible must be situated within the Tradition of the Church if it is to be rightly heard as Godâ??s revelation to his people and experienced as source of the new life of the Kingdom.
The Scriptures are themselves the product of Holy Tradition. “Tradition is the matrix,” Fr John writes, “in which the Scriptures are conceived and from which they are brought forth.” This is most clearly seen in the relationship between the New Testament and the apostolic Church. Before a single epistle or gospel was composed there was the Church and the apostolic gospel that had brought her into being. It was in this living community, indwelt and inspired by the Holy Spirit, tutored by the apostolic memory, sustained, formed, and recreated by Holy Baptism and the Eucharistic sacrifice, that Apostles and Evangelists put quill to parchment and brought forth the texts that came to be received as the New Testament. It is this primary and fundamental life of the Church that is Holy Tradition. “Scripture as written text is born of Tradition,” writes Fr John.
The relationship between Bible and Tradition is therefore a closed hermeneutical circle. Holy Scripture is God’s Word to his Church for salvation and is thus the canon by which all traditions are judged and authentic Tradition is determined. The Holy Scripture, on the other hand, is birthed within the Church and by the Church as the normative expression of her Holy Tradition. Holy Scripture is Tradition, the normative part of Tradition, yet not independently of the whole of Tradition. Holy Tradition thus determines the canonical limits of Scripture and provides the interpretive community in which Scripture may be rightly read and interpreted.
At the heart of this circularity of Scripture and Tradition is the person of the Holy Spirit. Fr John writes:
To the patristic mind, what makes this seemingly circular approach not only possible but necessary is the presence and activity of the Holy Spirit, the Spirit of Truth, who guides the Church and her inspired authors both to preserve and transmit the essential elements of Tradition, and to produce the canonical or normative writings which Tradition spawns and shapes in terms of their content. Without this inspirational work of the Spirit, both Scripture and Tradition would be purely human products, devoid of any claim to ultimate truth or authority. It is the work of the Spirit that enables the Church both to generate and to interpret her own canon or rule of truth, and thereby to preserve intact, as she must, the true hermeneutic circle constituted by Scripture in Tradition.
How very different this approach is from all Protestant formulations of the authority of the Bible! The Protestant sola scriptura seeks to exalt God’s Word and authority over the Church, and yet, ironically and contrary to intention, ends up exalting the private opinion of the interpreter over all. Orthodoxy, on the other hand, envisions Scripture as an integral part (though my use of the word â??partâ?? is probably inappropriate and inapplicable) of the life of the Spirit-inspired Church whose present reality is the Holy Tradition. As a result, Orthodoxy is equipped to effectively exercise communal discipline over the individual interpreter who finds himself reading the Scripture in ways contrary to the catholic mind of the Church. (I welcome correction from our Orthodox readers.) I believe that a Roman Catholic would heartily affirm Fr John’s presentation, with, of course, the usual provisos about the papal magisterium, etc. (But again I welcome correction.)
A question for my unrepentant sola scriptura brethren: Both Orthodoxy and Catholicism reject sola scriptura and construe a circular relationship between the Holy Bible and Holy Tradition. Which is more likely to be a late innovation? the catholic approach or the Protestant approach?
â??Sacred Tradition is the very Church; without the Sacred Tradition the Church does not exist. Those who deny the Sacred Tradition deny the Church and the preaching of the Apostlesâ?? (St Nectarios of Aegina).
11 May 2004
Missourian, if you have a quotation but don’t remember the source or author, you can plug a representative phrase or two (in quotation marks) into Google. I did that and found the source of your quotation:
http://catholica.pontifications.net/?page_id=854
The author is Alvin Kimel.
Is this the issue with sola scriptura?
1. To be a correctly understood and applied, scripture requires interpretation and context authoritatively provided (only) by the Church under guidance of the Holy Spirit. 2. The Holy Tradition of the Church entirely includes scripture and its proper interpretation, but it also includes more, and the ‘more’ part is important.
??
I find the whole concept of sola scriptura problematic, both logically and historically.
First, sola scriptura is inherently contradictory in that it itself is not a biblical concept. It is a belief about the sufficiency of the Bible that is not found in the Bible. . . .
Second, sola scriptura makes no sense from an historical perspective. The formation of the canon took hundreds of years, and for many decades in the early church there was no “New Testament.” If sola scriptura is the rule, then the early church was in a world of hurt. The canon was a development within the church, part of church tradition, a different aspect of the tradition but not something that was thought to be separate from the tradition.
I think that in conservative protestant circles there is a very basic error made about the Bible, which is that certain passages in the Bible that talk about the “word of God” are seen as talking about the Bible as we now know it. But clearly that cannot be the case, since much of the Bible was not yet written when these passages were. For example, the well-known passage in 2 Timothy — “All Scripture is inspired by God,” & etc. — could not have referred to the New Testament as we know it, since the NT did not exist at that time, and much of it had not been written or widely circulated at that time.
For example, as far as I know, early Christian writers do not even quote from the gospels until around 150 a.d. (While it is true that the Didache appears to quote from the Sermon on the Mount [the “two ways” section] none of the quotations are attributed to Jesus or to anything like a “gospel.”)
Jim stop building strawmen to frame your discussions.
There is more to the concept of sola scriputra than what you present. It is not an argument that is ahistorical.
It was a response to abuses by the papacy. In particular the selling of indulgences.
Sola Scriptura means that Scripture is the source and norm of doctrine and life (norma normans). It is the standard by which doctrines are to be judged. When you place it into the context of the Reformation it makes sense, because it limits ecclesiastical abuse.
I should point out that the Reformers were not against tradition. There were against contrived tradition (i.e. again indulgences). Even Luther would agree with the quote Missourian cites by Kimmel about the abuse of private intrepretation. (He’s quoted as complaining that every milkmaid now thinks she’s an exegete).
If you’ve spent some time in the writings of the Lutheran Reformers you would find tradition is very much evident in their arguements (i.e. Alone, The Augsburg Confession quotes Irenaeus, Ambrose, Cyprian, Cyril of Alexander, John Chrysostom, and Anthanasius in the argument’s presentation).
Jerry writes: “There is more to the concept of sola scriputra than what you present. It is not an argument that is ahistorical.”
Sure, it has it’s origins in disputes with the Catholic church. My concern is not how the doctrine originated, but how it is typically used today. My point is not that the doctrine is ahistorical, but that (as understood by people today) it leads to a non-historical view of the origins of scripture.
For many fundamentalists or conservative protestants, the Bible had a kind of “virgin birth,” if you will, but with the human element seen as unimportant. Sure, actual humans had to write the stuff down, but beyond that it was all God, and God ensured that no human corruption was allowed to enter into the text of the Bible. In other words, the Bible is seen has having a purity of content and origin that stands in opposition to the “traditions of men.” For some this purity rises to the level of “inerrancy.” While they know that the New Testament had some kind of history behind it, that history is seen as irrelevant, or is reinterpreted so that it’s nothing they have to be concerned about, and the human and historical elements are in effect edited out. For many fundamentalists it’s as if poof! — the New Testament just showed up one day.
When you talk to fundamentalists (and I was one for ten years) many of them express a desire to get back to a state of spiritual purity, a kind of Christian Garden of Eden, that they believe existed during the time of the apostles, but that was subsequently corrupted. And the way to get back to the garden is to just stick with the Bible and jettison everything else.
What I try to explain to them is that had they lived in the time of the early church, they wouldn’t have spent their evenings in Bible study, because the New Testament didn’t exist at that time. Furthermore, books were very scarce and expensive, and most people were illiterate. So even had the New Testament existed then they a) wouldn’t have been able to afford a Bible, and b) wouldn’t have been able to read it if they could afford one. Their only exposure to the Bible would have been the readings that were part of the church service, the content of which would have been determined by the Old Testament plus whatever Christian or proto-Christian (or Gnostic or Ebionite) writings were in circulation in that area. This was the situation on the ground for the very early church. But it’s not the situation that today’s sola scriptura folks want to hear about.
Jim wrote : For many fundamentalists or conservative protestants, the Bible had a kind of “virgin birth,” if you will, but with the human element seen as unimportant. Sure, actual humans had to write the stuff down, but beyond that it was all God, and God ensured that no human corruption was allowed to enter into the text of the Bible. In other words, the Bible is seen has having a purity of content and origin that stands in opposition to the “traditions of men.” For some this purity rises to the level of “inerrancy.” While they know that the New Testament had some kind of history behind it, that history is seen as irrelevant, or is reinterpreted so that it’s nothing they have to be concerned about, and the human and historical elements are in effect edited out. For many fundamentalists it’s as if poof! â?? the New Testament just showed up one day.
Fundamentalists and Conservative Protestants are not the same thing. Fundamentalism was a reaction to liberalism and mondernism of the 19th century. Conservative Protestants would be better described as orthodox confessionalists.
There is no “virgin birth” concept for Scripture in Conservative Protestant theological literature. In fact, the history of the canon is heavily discussed in the literature. Issues surrounding canonicity such as the antilegomena and homolegoumena, are still relevant discussions. Many of the current histories on the Canon have been written by conservative protestants.
What you are doing is taking a small sectarian idea in America and applying it to the whole. It’s a strawman argument Jim, because your anecdotal story doesn’t apply to Protestanism as a whole.
Note 15 Thanks, JULI
Thanks for digging up the author. SMART IDEA!!!
I am over my head I probably shouldn’t have posted this.
Jerry, Jim’s agument is not a straw man at all. It may not be all inclusive, but the many, many of people out there who profess the three alones (Jesus Christ alone, Faith alone, Scripture alone) as the foundation of Christianity take the view that Jim presents. Consequently, the whole idea of icons, liturgy, vestments, etc are seen as anti-Christian idolatry.
Michael you’ve distorted the discussion.
The issue is how Sola Scriptura is defined. Jim attempted to create a image that all Protestantism in general holds to a superstitions belief in the formation of Scripture. My argument is that is not the case but the exception. Again, those churces who hold to that view are the exception and not the norm among Protestants.
As far as the three solas (which are fides, gratia, scriptura)yes there are churches that hold to these views. But their reaction against icons, liturgy, vestments, etc is motivated by anti-Roman Catholicism (not so much anti-Christian idolatry) not because of holding to the solas. Yet again among Protestantism this is the exception and not the practice as a whole. You may be amazed by how many Protestant churches’ liturgical practics would put Roman churches to shame.
What should be clarified that the issue is not so much Protestantism as a whole. But that peculair American development of Protestant Christianity. That is negatively portrayed by the media and is the dominate religious voice in America. But it only represents a small portion of Protestantism around the world.
Jerry writes: “Many of the current histories on the Canon have been written by conservative protestants. What you are doing is taking a small sectarian idea in America and applying it to the whole.”
Well, yes, I’m generalizing. But I wouldn’t say that the idea I describe is small and sectarian. I would say there are tens of millions of people in the country whose beliefs at least approximate what I have described.
Even many of the conservative protestants who understand the history of the canon don’t seem to perceive the significance of that history — which is that the scriptures are a PART OF the tradition, not something separate from the tradition, and not something that stands in opposition to the tradition.
I would even say that the scriptures can only be understood within the context of the tradition. Take the gospels, for example. Interestingly, there are both conservative and modern attempts to understand the gospels outside of the tradition. The conservatives end up with the doctrine of biblical inerrancy, trying to “harmonize” all the various and obvious discrepancies between the gospel accounts. Of course, the early church fathers weren’t stupid, and they knew that there were significant differences between the accounts, and yet rejected attempts to harmonize or eliminate those discrepancies.
The modern folks end up with various techniques of higher criticism, some of which can actually be quite beneficial in understanding the text. But they tend to focus on the fragements — the various sources — rather than looking at the whole. In other words, for the early church the gospels presented a kind of gestalt, for lack of a better word. The gospels paint a certain kind of literary but non-literal portrait of Jesus, which becomes lost in the midst of the analysis of sources. And we end up with a Jesus who was married, unmarried, gay, straight, an itinerant Jewish apocalyptic preacher, a cynic philosopher, and so on. Once you lose the gestalt, the portrait, what happens is . . . everything.
In my view, in a kind of paradoxical way, both the doctrine of biblical inerrancy AND the chaos of modern biblical scholarship result from attempts to understand the gospels outside of the tradition. One focuses on certainty, the other on uncertainty, but both miss the point.
The historical critic (of the type that Jim mentions; who have no unifying narrative to harmonize the apparent contradictions in scripture), and the fundamentalist share an assumption in common: historicism is the ground of truth. Both view scripture as a historical text, because both assume the veracity of scripture lies in its historical authenticity. The fundamentalist builds a superstructure of reasoning to harmonize what appear to be historical contradictions thereby affirming the historicity and thus the authority of scripture, while the historical critic points to contradictions (among other apparent variances) to conclude that the scripture can claim no authority beyond what any other text could claim.
The question of sola-scriptura enters the discussion because of this crisis of authority (and in some quarters it really is a crisis). Jim correctly pointed out the fundamentalist reading of the verse “all scripture is inspired by God” does not work as a proof-text. Historical critics (of the kind Jim describes), on the other hand, will argue that this verse was added later as attempt to infer an authority that the biblical authors could not rightfully claim. IOW, they read the verse in the same way, although from the opposite direction.
Sola-scriptura however, did not enter Protestantism in the way that fundamentalist (and some Evangelical) Christians conclude it to mean today. Sola-Scriptura did not mean that everyone gets to decide what the scriptures mean for himself alone. Martin Luther certainly did not mean this, and many of the more traditional Protestant Churches would not read it this way either.
Sola-scriptura means that the scriptures are the preeminant authority in the Christian life. They have a higher authority, a final authority really, above any council, Church Father, the most learned biblical exegete, whoever. In this classical understanding of the term, Luther was right in line with the Church Fathers. What he told his medieval flock is what St. John Chrysostom told his hearers centuries earlier.
This does not mean that Scripture is read apart from a tradition. What it does mean however, that the authority of scripture lies not in its historicity, but somewhere else, namely, the authority of the prophet and apostle. The scriptures are the collective witness of the prophets and apostles (and that they were written by prophetic or apostolic “schools” make no difference here), because the prophet and apostle were those who could, and did, make the audacious claim that their word came directly from God. Read the Apostle Paul, for example. Where did he get his Gospel? From Christ Himself. Everyone else, even the brightest lights of Christendom (Chrysostom or Basil, for example) could and would not ever make this claim for themselves. That is why we call them Fathers and not Apostles. They bore children in the Gospel — in the word of the Apostle — which is why we call them Fathers of the Church.
The Tradition arises from those who heard this apostolic preaching, this word from God mediated through the voice of the prophet and apostle, and lived in it. It emerges in the life of the Christian and his community. Because the Traditon is apostolic, that is, it draws from the apostolic preaching, it too shares in this apostolic authority, and can be be said to be apostolic in character, although this authority is necessarily derivative. Remember what it says in the book of Acts: Peter preached and then the Lord added to the Church those who would be saved.
The authority of scripture then, lies not in its historicity (although the scriptures have an unquestionable historic character — they we bequethed to us after many centuries after all), but is derived from the authority of the prophets and apostles themselves. Remember what the scripture itself says: truth is a person — Jesus Christ, not a system of constructs, propositions, or a superstructure of ideas (hence no systematic theology but rather story, in the entire text of scripture).
Truth is apprehended, comprehended, through living encounter with the living God. The power, the substance that makes the words authoritative, is that they flow from the mouth of Him who is Truth. The words are living. They both create and recreate life whenever they are spoken and heard (hence Paul’s exhortation towards preaching), to those who have eyes to see and ears to hear. Open eyes and ears are of course, predicated on the heart (to use scriptural terminology), and those oriented towards truth will hear this Gospel and thus see the Christ who reveals Himself through its preaching. If the heart is darkened, the eyes are blind and the hearing blocked. Think of Luke here: “Blessed are the pure in heart for they shall see God.”
The Gospel does not have to be “proven,” it has to be preached. The Gospel — the word of God mediated throught the words of the apostle and prophet — won’t submit to any human contrivance (as good as some of them might be) because it comes from the very source and ground of Truth — Jesus Christ. If our systems of weights and measurements, our comprehensive structures we have built to comprehend the workings of the universe (again, some of them good) were able to confirm the veracity of the Gospel, then Christ would not be the source and ground of truth. IOW, the truth that flows from Him who is Truth would exist below these contrivances because the contrivances ultimately serve as the confirmation that the words that flow from Him who is Truth are indeed true.
What the fundamentalist and (fundamentalist) historical critic forget is that history, in the end, is text as well. When we read history, we read the words of the historian. What history bequethes us, in other words, is a story. But historicity is not the ground of Truth, thus attempts to prove or disprove the historicity of the scripture (also called “literalness” or “inerrancy”) in order to strengthen (or weaken) the authority of scripture simply misses the point.
This is not to say these attempts don’t have ramifications in the larger culture. They do. But even here a misconception is at work. The scriptures are not authoritative because they are accepted by the larger culture. The authority rests elsewhere, in places I already described above. What the cultural shifts indicate is that the nature of our preaching needs to change. More on this some other time.
Note 19 Pellucid
Fr. Hans, I am going to copy comment 19 for safekeeping in my files. Thank you for this very succinct and clear explanation.
Most fundamentalists also adhere to the idea that Scripture is the unfiltered word of God, meaning that Scripture is a “literal dictation” straight from God without words and/or ideas being recast within the mind of the speaker or author of the verse. Sometimes, they are also literalists in the sense that when Scripture states that Methusaleh lived to be hundreds of years old or that when the world was created in exactly seven days, they don’t believe this to be hyperbole.
Something can be allegory or metaphor but still “true” (which I think fundamentalists often forget), and I think this is the Orthodox and Catholic opinion. Even many who believe the story of Adam and Eve to be not historical fact but of Jungian archetypes believe that something happened to Man as a whole at some point in time. Perhaps the bigger question is the former one: when Paul speaks about this or that, is he quoting Christ verbatim or is he relaying his own belief about something that may or may not be true, whatever the level of importance (such as the return of Christ etc.)? Are the writers of Scripture infallible in their words or is there even a hint of some “agenda” or specific intent on their parts outside of any supernatural guidance given to them?
It’s not that I don’t believe that Truth exists, it’s just that I’m not sure how easily it can be ascertained by us mere mortals. To this extent, I can see why fundamentalism is a reassuring option.
I agree – Father’s explanation in No. 19 is brilliant. The very success of Christianity is so improbable it defies any purely human or scientific explanation. The historical Jesus Christ was brutally executed and his terrified followers sent into hiding. His message was rejected by the majority of his contemporaries who were hoping for a more militant and material form of redemption. That should have been the end of it for Christianity.
He rose, and that was reported by dozens of different people who saw Him at different times. Only several months after His execution, on the day of Pentacost, his followers, humble working class people for the most part, not the most learned or articulate lot, were able to embark on a campaign of preaching that would win thousands of converts. Their most determined foe, Saul of Tarsus, fell off a horse and becomes Paul, their most passionate and articulate defender. The very message of Christ which emphasizes humility and compassion towards the less fortunate was almost at polar opposites with the prevailing values of the Roman Empire, which celebrated power, wealth and conquest. Despite the horrific persecutions of the most powerful empire in the world, the sect not only continued to survive but it gained many more adherents everywhere it’s message was preached, and its growth was unstoppable. There is no scientific explanation for these surprising events.
The non-scientific explanation is that human beings are not merely physical, but spiritual entities. The message of Jesus Christ touches something very deep and fundamental in the human heart, the original programming on our spiritual operating systems written to the hard drivees of our souls, to use a metaphor, long obscured and hidden by innumerable viruses and corrupting software packages. This is why the experience of joy felt by human hearts coming into contact with the love of God and the message of Jesus Christ has remained so consistent over the last two millenia.
Dean writes: “Father’s explanation in No. 19 is brilliant.”
Yes, it is both clear and insightful, and, I think largely right. But there’s one place where I have a little problem:
Fr. Hans: “The authority of scripture then, lies not in its historicity (although the scriptures have an unquestionable historic character — they we bequethed to us after many centuries after all), but is derived from the authority of the prophets and apostles themselves. Remember what the scripture itself says: truth is a person — Jesus Christ, not a system of constructs, propositions, or a superstructure of ideas (hence no systematic theology but rather story, in the entire text of scripture).”
Here it seems like Fr. Hans wants to have his cake and eat it too. If the authority of scripture is not to be found in its historicity, that implies that some? most? is not historical. But then he says that they have an “unquestioned historic character” — which implies that they are historical after all. Also, it seems to me that he’s is throwing around a number of concepts — historicity, authority, truth — whose relationship to each other is not necessarily clear.
For myself, I agree completely that the truth of scripture is not necessarily an historical truth. It is a poetic or metaphorical or existential truth, however you want to express it. In my view, this is what the authority of the apostles and prophets is all about. And to say that something is poetically true but not historically true is not to imply that it is a lesser kind of truth. When humans want to say something really important, they tell stories. In fact, Fr. Hans notes that truth is not found in systematic theology but in the story. The authority of the apostles and prophets is the guarantor of THAT kind of truth, not of historical truth or fact.
In fact, this is how the ancients often did history. For example Thucydides mentions this explicitly. When he talks about the speeches that the generals gave before various battles he says that sometimes he relies on what he heard, sometimes on what others told him, and sometimes on what would have been appropriate to the occasion. In other words, when he inserts a speech that would have been “appropriate to the occasion,” he’s trying to express the significance of the event, even though it is not something that “really happened.” So we have to take the ancient writers as they are, and not make them into something they are not.
Here’s where I think Dean goes awry. Dean says that “He rose, and that was reported by dozens of different people who saw Him at different times.” But if you look at the comments of Paul in I Corinthians, he talks about the many people who “saw” Jesus, in the same way that he “saw” Jesus. But Paul had a vision of Jesus:
“After that, he was seen of above five hundred brethren at once; of whom the greater part remain unto this present, but some are fallen asleep. After that, he was seen of James; then of all the apostles. And last of all he was seen of me also, as of one born out of due time.” I Cor. 15:6-8.
So it is difficult to know whether Paul was talking about those who had visions, or those who “actually observed.” In addition Paul’s order of those who “saw” differs completely from the gospel accounts, that were probably written much later.
So I think it is problematic to take either the gospels or Paul’s account as historical accounts of “what really happened” — or what would have been recorded on an ancient video camera, so to speak. Again, that doesn’t mean that the events aren’t true in a different sense, but merely that they are not true in a way that can be historically demonstrated. I think it is a reasonable position to hold that such stories are true (poetically or existentially), while at the same time acknowledging that one cannot know them to be historically true. It seems to me that if someone wants to assert that something is historically true, that means that the person need to make an historical argument, not an appeal to authority or inspiration. (The same with mathematics or science or any other field of study.)
Now I’m not trying to pick an argument with Dean or Fr. Hans. The relationship between faith and history has long been of interest to me, and I would appreciate the comments of anyone who cares to jump in here.
Jim,
It seems to me that you are assuming, at least in part, that history is a â??scientific disciplineâ?? that uses discreet, observable facts which are capable of specific, independent verification. These facts are further used to arrive at the truth about an event or occurrence which gives an accurate understanding of the past. Further, such an idea of history tends to believe that all pertinent data is both available, verifiable and in agreement. While the Positivist historians of the late 19th, early 20th centuries introduced such ideas into the discipline of history, even they were never under the assumption that history could ever be â??scientificâ?? in the manner you seem to assume. One has to keep in mind that facts in history, no matter how thoroughly verified and authenticated, mean very little. What is crucial is the context, the meaning and the connections which give vitality and importance to the factsâ??not the other way around.
History is an attempt by people to understand other people who lived in the past, to illumine the connections that exist between the past people and the present people. We then use that information to better understand ourselves and chart a more coherent path into the future or better handle current problems.
History is about discovering the continuity of human experience while at the same time describing the significant changes and shifts that have occurredâ??putting those changes into the context of overall human experience. History, properly understood, is the life blood of a culture, preserving in collective memory what is important and true for a people to know about themselves, about their culture, and about others. To use history as a critical and destructive tool in an attempt to restructure a culture or belief along entirely different lines is a miss use of the historical discipline. It is equivalent to using religion for witch-hunts.
Christianity as a faith is both profoundly historical in the sense that it is the continuing revelation of God to His Creation in time and profoundly a-historical as Christianity is also wholly outside time. Once again we are faced with the central antinomy of the Christian experience: our God is both supremely and completely other-unknowable, while at the same time He reveals Himself to us in excruciatingly intimate and personal ways. He is fully God and fully man.
Sola Scriptura, as it is commonly understood and articulated by many of its adherents today is a belief that ignores the antinomy (also a major problem for much of modern Protestantism). Sola Scriptura, no matter the intent of its originators, has become a utilitarian idea that strips the mystery from the Christian faith. It is in the stripping of mystery that the modern day proponents of Sola Scriptura become united with the â??historicalâ?? debunkers of the faith.
Sola Scriptura, as it is commonly understood and articulated by many of its adherents today is a belief that ignores the antinomy (also a major problem for much of modern Protestantism). Sola Scriptura, no matter the intent of its originators, has become a utilitarian idea that strips the mystery from the Christian faith. It is in the stripping of mystery that the modern day proponents of Sola Scriptura become united with the historical debunkers of the faith.
Michael the problem is not Sola Scriptura, the problem is the source of the theology. Sola Scriptura is only used as a justification of a preconceived belief.
And the problem is not found in all of Protestantism, but primarily in the Calvinist/Arminian versions (unfortunately in this country it happens to be the dominate Protestant thought).
The basis of Calvanism is Calvin’s principle that all theology begins with the glory of God. It’s from this perspective that the Reformed churches interpret Scripture as a “divinely given codex of doctrine and ethics”. For the Reformed (and all the variations derived from this process of thought) Scripture must be defined and set.
The ideas that dominate Reformed theology are Rationalism and Reason (that’s why I made a reference to Feuerbach being the source of modern Reformed thought). Calvin himself held to a belief that all God’s revelation can be solved by sanctified reason. They use the philosophical argument that the finite cannot comprehend the infinite to deny the Real Presence in the Eucharist, because — as you correctly pointed out Michael — they cannot accept the idea of mystery. (Their rejection of mystery also effect their concept of Christ because they believe he only had a portion of the divine nature, not being fully divine.)
But going back to my point, the Reformed concept of Sola Scriptura is not the standard for all of Protestantism. It’s a pretty broad brush you use when you just use say “Protestantism believes”. It would be like writing about the Orthodox understanding of the Papacy, but quoting Uniate churches as the source of their belief.
Notes 23 and 24:
FWIW: I think some confusion is caused by the fact that the academic field of history (the post-modernists not withstanding) requires some amount of verifiable evidence for something to be considered “historical.” The difficulty, of course, comes in how one interprets the historical evidence. Michael, what you describe is, I think, â??Historyâ?? as a concept, and I agree with you.
As to the relationship between faith and history, I think we have to conclude that the study of history, can only answer those questions for which there is enough evidence to make a compelling argument. IMO, it cannot adequately address questions of faith. For example, we can point to historical evidence outside of scripture that indicated a man named Jesus was crucified, but we cannot prove empirically that Jesus rose from the dead, ascended into Heaven, and now sits at the right hand of the Father.
I think Father Jacobse’ point about historicism in note 19 raises a good point. Many of the Positivist historians, like many of the historical-critical biblical scholars, have approached their historical research guided by the belief that the only truth is that which can be proven empirically. Many, if not most, of these scholars have interpreted history (and scripture) with the preconceived notion that faith was merely superstition. I think Jaroslav Pelikan makes that point in “The Vindication of Tradition.”
Michael writes: “It seems to me that you are assuming, at least in part, that history is a ‘scientific discipline’ that uses discreet, observable facts which are capable of specific, independent verification. These facts are further used to arrive at the truth about an event or occurrence which gives an accurate understanding of the past.”
You’re right, history isn’t science. But it is an interpretive discipline based on facts. I see a history as a kind of theory, functioning rather like a scientific theory, in this sense: both historical and scientific theories function as models, that are useful ways of organizing and understanding data. As models we do not expect them to be “true,” and each model will have strengths and weaknesses.
Given that historical models are not “truth,” I would still argue that anyone who aspires to do history has to go about it in the context of the discipline of history. In other words, even though a model is not “true,” that doesn’t mean that anything goes.
Are the gospels “historical?” In one sense they are. In most of the ancient religions the “action” takes place in the heavenly or mythical realm. In Christianity the “action,” if you will, takes place on earth, at a particular time and place. But the gospels are very problematic for historians. While they reference events in the temporal plane, there really isn’t a lot for the historian to work with. The gospels were never intended to be history per se. Jesus never wrote anything himself, nor were there many who wrote about him. While a tremendous amount of research has gone into the study of the development of the gospels, I personally do not find that the end results say very much that is definitive about the historical Jesus. In fact, most of what I have seen written about the historical Jesus is more speculation that history. Thus, when it comes to the historical Jesus, I borrow a phrase from Wittgenstein — whereof we cannot know, thereof we cannot speak.
Some may say that faith involves believing things that cannot be proved. But I think we need to make an important distinction. Some things cannot be proved because they are not the kind of thing that CAN be proved. For example, if I see a “beautiful” rainbow, I cannot “prove” that it is beautiful. There is no meter on which “beauty” will register. But it can be proved that witnesses saw a rainbow at a certain place, date, and time.
On the one hand, if certain things in the gospels cannot be “proved,” I don’t see that as constituting some kind of weakness or defect in the gospels. On the other hand, I don’t claim to “know” (in a rational sense) that for which I have no rational warrant.
One of the things that has always impressed me about the Orthodox church is its lack of interest in systematic theology, preferring instead to let things remain in the realm of mystery. Following that principle, what I want to do is to leave aside questions of “what really happened,” and focus instead on the power of the story that the early Christians passed on to us.
Again, any comments are welcome.
Note 27. Change “rational” to “empirical” in p6 and you’ve got the guts of a decent essay.