Individualism vs. Individuality

I'm continuing a discussion from a previous thread with Nick:

This also touches upon the notion of hierarchy, which is just as decisive as the other issues. If you assert a genuine hierarchy, you're self-condemned since Luther and Calvin (and others) weren't hierarchy. If you assert no hierarchy, then each man's authority to judge/interpret is by *definition* equal.

This is a bit confusing. It doesn't follow that because Luther and Calvin "weren't hierarchy," Protestant belief is "condemned." I can still hold to a belief in hierarchy and say that the hierarchy of the Church during the Reformation was mistaken on critical issues. That's within the possible appropriate evaluations of a subordinate authority. It's also congruent with Scriptural precedent (e.g. Apostles disobeying the valid Jewish hierarchy in the New Testament, Old Testament prophets disobeying the divinely established monarchy and its temple priests and prophets, etc.).

And Luther's ultimate "middle finger" was when he said: "Unless I am convinced by Scripture and plain reason - I do not accept the authority of the popes and councils" How is this not individualism at it's bedrock?

Let's assume your quote is in context and that we can conveniently ignore all the other statements Luther made regarding the authority of the Church (or, for that matter, the good that came from the Papacy). It seems you're simply trading on different senses of what it means to be individualistic. That someone can disagree with an authority figure (or that someone ultimately does disagree with an authority figure) does not entail individualism in the sense of thinking all authority is rooted in the individual. The former is describing a basic fact of being an person with a will--that individuals can ultimately attempt to do whatever they wish within the pool of talents, resources and opportunity they've been given by God. That's a different (metaphysical?) concept than what is meant by individualism in the post-Enlightenment West. Granted many Evangelicals, products as they are of a country deeply influenced by Enlightenment, engage in individualism as properly construed, this does not reflect the attitudes and preferences of the Reformers and their faithful followers.

Also consider that lay-Catholic apologists disagree with priests and scholars within their denomination from time to time, even though these figures (who are sometimes even bishops and scholars at the same time and appointed by other bishops to commissions with oversight from the Magisterium) are authorities (in various sense of the word) above them. They do this because they believe these priests and scholars are not accurately representing the teachings of Tradition; they are failing in their roles as subordinate authorities. (And sometimes they are correct in this assessment, e.g. Luke Timothy Johnson on homosexuality.)

Likewise, Protestants can also speak of rejecting certain manifestations of hierarchical structures if it seems they have over stepped their bounds of authority or violated the principles of Scripture, God, etc. to which they have sworn allegiance as officers of the Church. How this entails individualism as construed by the post-Enlightenment conception of a self-determined identity (and all of its philosophical baggage) is unknown. Indeed, the very idea of disagreeing with an authority means that a valid authority already exists. But radical individualism denies the presence of authorities outside of man (or Scripture, in the case of the Anabaptists) from the beginning; it's not even part of the discussion.

In other words, the approach of Luther and Calvin is decidedly different than the idea that all authority ultimately rests in the individual—that the individual decides first and foremost without any respect or regard or deference to the established structure of the Church, whether in elders, councils or pastors.

Don't be simplistic in confusing similar results in some cases, where, for example, someone in the PCA who decides that Sartre's philosophy is to be preferred to the standards of the WCF, with someone who was born into a deeply anti-authority Evangelical culture and lives her entire life deciding that she'll live however she pleases. The structures are significantly different, especially when we consider the threats of excommunication and discipline--which constitute authoritative action--on an individual in a properly functioning Reformation church.

I'd be interested to see how you'd reconcile deeply individualistic approaches to Scripture with the measured approach Turretin outlines should someone find himself unable to accept the teachings of the church under which he submits:

...they ought to undertake nothing rashly or disorderly and unseasonably, so as to violently rend the body of their mother, but to refer the difficulties they feel to their church and either to prefer her public opinion to their own private judgment or to secede from her communion, if the conscience cannot acquiesce in her judgment. Thus they cannot bind the inner court of conscience, except inasmuch as they are found to agree with the word of God (Francis Turretin, Institutes of Elenctic Theology, Vol. 3 [Phillipsburg: P&R, 1997], 284).

Consider also how Turretin distinguishes between various kinds of judgments:

Three types of judge must be carefully distinguished. The first is the ultimate and authoritative who decides authoritatively and absolutely, as supreme ruler, and from whom there is no appeal. The second is that of a functionary or minister, who gives a decision as a public official. The third is personal or private-the individual's decision regarding either the law or its interpretation. In the first case, the decision is final and absolute. In the second, it is official, but subordinate and limited by the law. In the third case, it is a personal opinion without official standing (The Supreme Judge of Controversies and the Interpreter of Scripture).

In the radical individualistic approach, at the very least, the second kind of judge is completely removed from the picture.

As for Calvin, I've read Institutes 4.9, and he clearly reserves the right to object or toss out anything he thinks doesn't conform to (his interpretation) of Scripture. I've also read where he went line by line on the Council of Trent (especially on Justification) and single-handedly rejected anything he didn't agree with.

And you reserve the right to object or toss out anything you think doesn't conform to your interpretation of the Magisterium's official documents—Tradition.

This isn't unique to Protestantism, and it isn't unique to those outside of Catholicism. You are inconsistently applying the simple fact of life that all people are ultimately free to disregard whatever anyone says. If it's a problem for Protestantism, it's a problem for Catholicism.

I'd also add that your picture of Calvin doesn't square with what I've already quoted from him in the previous thread and what he wrote on the authority of the church elsewhere (cf. Institutes, IV.x.18). Consider also what I've quoted from him in this thread.

Nick writes elsewhere:

The *catch* is that the (pretend) Reformers' actions paved the way for radical individualism since in principle each layman could fall back on their own interpretation of Scripture, just as Luther and Calvin did when they disagreed with someone else.

This eventually led to watering down the Christian Gospel as a whole, and where the radical individualism really began to show - and eventually became so common that most Protestants see it as "normal" in Christianity.

In the sense you're using the concept, it seems everyone could "fall back on" whatever interpretation of Scripture they hold. I don't see how you connect that with the Reformers in a meaningful fashion; it's not as if people didn't engage in this kind of behavior before the Reformation.

Follow-up: Ratzinger says "Resurrection Merely Symbolic"

Following up on the "Ratzinger-used-to-believe-the-Resurrection-was-symbolic" post (one wonders what this meant for his understanding of "real presence" in the Eucharist), the individual who brought this to my attention was Matthew Vogan, who contacted me via Puritanboard.

It seems as if Ratzinger, at some later time, modified that view. What's less clear to me is, what was his motivation? As a scholar (a "leading Catholic scholar") even at that time, he would have come to that belief ("the resurrection is merely symbolic") only as the result of a long and thoughtful process. To have decided to have changed this view merely because he was moving up the ecclesiastical ladder, seems a bit hypocritical to me.

Matthew wrote this article describing all of this. And he points to what most people would consider to be a fundamental kind of dishonesty (although there is an "official" way to be deceptive that falls within the limits of Official Roman law, and Ratzinger, being a "leading Catholic scholar," knows all the tricks):

How then may the current Pope continue to deny such a statement of the Church’s official teaching? It can be done only by the Jesuitical distinction that he makes between his official and private views (despite the fact that his books are all marketed with 'Pope Benedict XVI' more prominently displayed than his real name). Despite the seemingly-binding nature of the new Catechism, some point to the fact that it was not prepared by a full Council and are able to take some refuge in Ratzinger’s comments that the Catechism seeks to leave debated questions as open as possible.

At this point, the footnote continues:

Joseph A Komonchak, 'The authority of the Catechism', in Introducing the Catechism of the Catholic Church: traditional themes and contemporary issues, ed. Berard L Marthaler, Paulist Press, 1994, pp 18-31). In Instruction on the Ecclesial Vocation of the Theologian issued by Ratzinger in 1990, there are complicated qualifications as to when and how views differing from official doctrine can be proposed: for example, 'witholding assent' is distinguished from 'dissent'.

I'm wondering again, at all of our "inconsistency detectors" out there, if this doesn't seem just a bit beyond inconsistent?

[Beyond this is the whole area of thought behind the papacy that allows that a pope can be as wicked as is humanly possible, just so long as he does not issue an ex-cathedra heretical teaching -- or at least, one that cannot be explained away. Does this not seem to our "inconsistency-detectors" out there, just a little bit inconsistent, if not hypocritical and outlandish and beyond belief?]

Just mull this over for a bit. I'm closing comments on this thread because I'm headed out of town for the weekend, and I won't really have much time or access to respond to comments. But I wanted to throw this out there for those of you who are interested.

7 Sacraments, Depending on Which Century

There was no intention during early centuries to limit the number of sacraments to seven. Any ritual that celebrated a divine saving action was considered a mystery or sacrament: feasts days such as Easter and Pentecost, actions such as ritual washing of feet and imposition of blessed ashes, along with the more major ones we would come to know as "the seven." Some lists of sacraments were very short, others had as many as thirty. In the mid-13th century the number was finally set at seven. Other holy rituals came to be called sacramentals. -Greg Dues, Catholic Customs & Traditions (revised edition, 2007) [New London: Twenty-Third Publications, 2007] pp.145-146

Matthew D. Schultz also points out: Consider Orthodox Bishop Timothy Ware's comments on the sacraments being numbered at 7:

"Only in the seventeenth century, when Latin influence was at its height, did this list [of seven sacraments] become fixed and definite. Before that date Orthodox writers vary considerably as to the number of sacraments: John of Damascus speaks of two; Dionysius the Areopagite of six; Joasaph, Metropolitan of Ephesus (fifteenth century), of ten; and those Byzantine theologians who in fact speak of seven sacraments differ as to the items which they include in their list. Even today the number seven has no particular dogmatic significance for Orthodox theology, but is used primarily as a convenience in teaching." -The Orthodox Church [New York, New York: Penguin Books, 1997], p. 275

A Deliberate Fiction

From Alister McGrath's The Genesis of Doctrine: A Study in the Foundation of Doctrinal Criticism:

Although it is often suggested that the reformers had no place for tradition in their theological deliberations, this judgment is clearly incorrect. While the notion of tradition as an extra-scriptural source of revelation is excluded, the classic concept of tradition as a particular way of reading and interpreting scripture is retained. Scripture, tradition and the kerygma are regarded as essentially coinherent, and as being transmitted, propagated and safeguarded by the community of faith. There is thus a strongly communal dimension to the magisterial reformers' understanding of the interpretation of scripture, which is to be interpreted and proclaimed within an ecclesiological matrix. It must be stressed that the suggestion that the Reformation represented the triumph of individualism and the total rejection of tradition is a deliberate fiction propagated by the image-makers of the Enlightenment.

McGrath makes a number of interesting remarks surrounding this passage, including contrasting the position of the Reformers with the radical elements of the Reformation. The above quotation and the surrounding remarks (as well as citation information) can be viewed here.

Consider in particular the nuanced approach McGrath takes to analyzing the issue of the "authority of the past" beginning on page 103. Compare this with the trite methodology many lay-Catholic apologists bring to their critiques of the Reformation.

Rank Individualism and Sola Scriptura

Abstract

It is often asserted that sola Scriptura devolves into rank individualism. Once the right to judge Church tradition by Scripture is given to individuals, rampant doctrinal confusion is the inevitable result. This criticism, however, is often based on a fallacious conflation of a post-Enlightenment individualism imbued in some modern Evangelicals and the doctrine of the Magisterial Reformers and their intellectual successors. Credible attempts to critique the doctrine of sola Scriptura must first aim to properly represent it.

(This post contains some extended quotations. For those with limited time, I have done my best to highlight their essential content through bolding.)

Asserting the Fallibility of Councils Produces a Regular Objection

Anticipating the Reformed approach to church councils, Calvin argues in the Institutes that councils are not infallible (and, therefore, to be judged by the higher standard of Scripture). Calvin summarizes his position as follows:

Wherefore, we cannot on any account admit that the Church consists in a meeting of pastors [at a council], as to whom the Lord has nowhere promised that they would always be good, but has sometimes foretold that they would be wicked. When he warns us of danger, it is to make us use greater caution.¹

I suspect, however, that the articulation of this position in other contexts had produced a regular objection from Catholics—that this kind of judgment reduces to rank individualism. Perhaps that is why Calvin immediately proceeds to write (bold mine):

What, then, you will say, is there no authority in the definitions of councils? Yes, indeed; for I do not contend that all councils are to be condemned, and all their acts rescinded, or, as it is said, made one complete erasure. But you are bringing them all (it will be said) under subordination, and so leaving every one at liberty to receive or reject the decrees of councils as he pleases. By no means; but whenever the decree of a council is produced, the first thing I would wish to be done is, to examine at what time it was held, on what occasion, with what intention, and who were present at it; next I would bring the subject discussed to the standard of Scripture. And this I would do in such a way that the decision of the council should have its weight, and be regarded in the light of a prior judgment, yet not so as to prevent the application of test which I have mentioned. I wish all had observed the method which Augustine prescribes in his Third Book against Maximinus, when he wished to silence the cavils of this heretic against the decrees of councils, "I ought not to oppose the Council of Nice to you, nor ought you to oppose that of Ariminum to me, as prejudging the question. I am not bound by the authority of the latter, nor you by that of the former. Let thing contend with thing, cause with cause, reason with reason, on the authority of Scripture, an authority not peculiar to either, but common to all." In this way, councils would be duly respected, and yet the highest place would be given to Scripture, everything being brought to it as a test. Thus those ancient Councils of Nice, Constantinople, the first of Ephesus, Chalcedon, and the like, which were held for refuting errors, we willingly embrace, and reverence as sacred, in so far as relates to doctrines of faith, for they contain nothing but the pure and genuine interpretation of Scripture, which the holy Fathers with spiritual prudence adopted to crush the enemies of religion who had then arisen. In some later councils, also, we see displayed a true zeal for religion, and moreover unequivocal marks of genius, learning, and prudence. But as matters usually become worse and worse, it is easy to see in more modern councils how much the Church gradually degenerated from the purity of that golden age.²

The Charge of Individualism Today

The substance of the objection Calvin addressed has not changed since the Reformation; only its form has been altered. Take two modern examples by Catholic apologists who assert that the right to judge the merits of tradition through Scriptural interpretation (which is the broader issue through which councils act as a particular lens) reduces to rank individualism (bolding mine):

The most scandalous fruit of Luther's linear lie has been the ballooning of over thirty-three thousand different Protestant denominations, as the due result of private interpretations apart from the true teachings of the Magisterium. The reason why there are over three-three [sic] thousand different denominations is because definitive and authoritative truths cannot be known through sola-scriptura.

The first fruit of sola-scriptura is not denominations or division, but is actually Christian relativism. Because sola-scriptura empowers its adherents to discover the truth according to their own light, the truth of sacred Scripture remains elusive to them and it proves to be the gateway to Christian secularism and the rejection of the authority of sacred Scripture all together. This is not hyperbolic rhetoric; the proof is [sic] these statements are all around us.

...

It is an odd thing indeed to suggest that a Christian can be guilty of being a relativist or an individualist, but such is the case in the Protestant religion, which is the seed of the so-called 'age of enlightenment'...it is their praxis [i.e. the natural outworking of their theological position, as opposed to their stated position] of sola-scriptura that Protestants hold that the definitive truth of God is unknowable.

...

In individualism, the human person exists as an isolated individual who has himself as his own moral arbiter and who enters into relationship with others only if he so chooses. Sola-scriptura inevitably leads to Individualism because through Scripture-alone each Christian can arrive at his or her own interpretation of the truth, relative to themselves. Sola-scriptura does not require a prayerful community effort.³

And:

Sadly, for the last 2,000 years, many have followed that tragic course of ignoring the teaching authority of the Church. Notice also that Christ shows the Church as being the court of final appeal, the last resort, the place whence the final decision on an issue would emanate. This clearly shows that the Church was established with a teaching authority that supersedes that of the individual. And Christ did not arrange things in such a way to hinder or "straightjacket" the individual believer, but to protect him from the dangers of heresy, disunity, and sin. By establishing the Church's Magisterium as the "court of final appeal" on doctrinal issues, and endowing the Magisterium with his own authority to preach and teach in his name (cf. Luke 10:16), believers are safeguarded from the theological and moral vagaries that arise when the principle of "private interpretation" of Scripture and Tradition (i.e., when dissociated from Church teaching) are put into play.⁴

A Respect for Councils and a Community-Oriented Approach to Doctrinal Truth

As with a number of Catholic objections to Protestantism, these only seem applicable to those Protestants who reject all tradition and/or hold to the post-Enlightenment value of the supreme autonomy of the individual to determine his own beliefs and identity. But that isn't what Calvin promoted, and neither is it what the modern children of the Reformation promote; these kinds of arguments fail to address the positions put forward by the confessional Protestantism born out of the Magisterial Reformation. Consider how irreconcilable these criticisms are with the following perspectives:

A. Here is another excerpt from Calvin:

Having proved that no power was given to the Church to set up any new doctrine, let us now treat of the power attributed to them in the interpretation of Scripture. We readily admit, that when any doctrine is brought under discussion, there is not a better or surer remedy than for a council of true bishops to meet and discuss the controverted point. There will be much more weight in a decision of this kind, to which the pastors of churches have agreed in common after invoking the Spirit of Christ, than if each, adopting it for himself, should deliver it to his people, or a few individuals should meet in private and decide.⁵

B. I've previously discussed how Berkhof describes Scriptural interpretation as a community-oriented task. I'd like to add the following with respect to the validity of councils:

The Roman Catholic Church ascribes to its dogmas absolute authority, not only because they are revealed truths, but even more particularly because they are infallibly apprehended and proposed by the Church for the belief of the faithful...

The Churches of the Reformation broke with this view. While they maintain that a doctrine does not become a dogma, and does not acquire ecclesiastical authority, until it is officially defined and accepted by the Church, they ascribe authority to it only because, and in so far as, it is founded on the Word of God. Their view of the matter can perhaps be best stated as follows. Materially (that is, as to contents) dogmas derive their authority exclusively from the infallible Word of God, but formally (as to form) they derive it from the Church...Church proclamation is an approximation to the original revelation, and not a perfect reproduction of it; but in so far as it does agree with it and is therefore really God speaking to sinners in the present, it is clothed with divine authority. The dogmas so conceived should be distinguished from the dogmas (plural), in which it is not God who speaks, but the Church, and which for that reason have only relative authority.⁶

C. Consider Whitaker's remarks:

We do not say that each individual should acquiesce in that interpretation which his own private spirit frames and dictates to him; for this would be to open a door to fanatical tempers and spirits: but we say that that Spirit should be the judge, who speaks openly and expressly in the scriptures, and whom all may hear; by him we desire that all other spirits, that is, all doctrines, (for so the word is to be taken in this place,) should be examined. We recognise no public judge save scripture, and the Spirit teaching us in scripture: yet this man speaks as if we made the spirit within the judge of others; which should never be done. For we are not so mad or foolish as to deal thus: You ought to acquiesce in this doctrine, because my spirit judges it to be true; but we say, You should receive this doctrine because the Holy Spirit in the scriptures hath taught us thus to think and to believe...For we allow that it is a highly convenient way of finding the true sense of scripture, for devout and learned men to assemble, examine the cause diligently, and investigate the truth; yet with this proviso, that they govern their decision wholly by the scriptures. Such a proceeding we, for our parts, have long wished for; for it is attended with a twofold advantage: first, that what is sought by many is found the more readily; second, that errors, and heretics the patrons of errors, are the more easily repressed, when they are condemned by the common consent and judgment of a great number.⁷

D. Consider the WCF as well:

For the better government, and further edification of the Church, there ought to be such assemblies as are commonly called synods or councils.

As magistrates may lawfully call a synod of ministers, and other fit persons, to consult and advise with, about matters of religion; so, if magistrates be open enemies to the Church, the ministers of Christ, of themselves, by virtue of their office, or they, with other fit persons upon delegation from their Churches, may meet together in such assemblies.

It belongs to synods and councils, ministerially to determine controversies of faith, and cases of conscience; to set down rules and directions for the better ordering of the public worship of God, and government of his Church; to receive complaints in cases of maladministration, and authoritatively to determine the same; which decrees and determinations, if consonant to the Word of God, are to be received with reverence and submission; not only for their agreement with the Word, but also for the power whereby they are made, as being an ordinance of God appointed thereunto in His Word.⁸

E. And, finally, Mathison:

Instead of being defined as the sole infallible authority, the Bible is said to be the “sole basis of authority” Tradition is not allowed in any sense; the ecumenical creeds are virtually dismissed; and the Church is denied any real authority. On the surface it would seem that this modern Evangelical doctrine would have nothing in common with the Roman Catholic or Eastern Orthodox doctrines of authority. But despite the very real differences, the modern Evangelical position shares one major flaw with both the Roman Catholic and the Eastern Orthodox positions. Each results in autonomy. Each results in final authority being placed somewhere other than God and His Word. Unlike the Roman Catholic position and the Eastern Orthodox position, however, which invariably result in the autonomy of the Church, the modern Evangelical position inevitably results in the autonomy of the individual believer.

...

The Bible nowhere gives any hint of wanting every individual believer to decide for himself and by himself what is and is not the true meaning of Scripture. The classical Reformed doctrine of sola scriptura meant that Scripture is the sole final and infallible authority. It does not mean that the lone individual is the one to determine what that Scripture means. Scripture was given to the Church within a certain pre-existing doctrinal context that had been preached by the Apostles for decades. Solo scriptura denies the necessity of that context, and it denies the necessity of that Church. In doing so it denies Christ who established that Church and who taught that doctrine to His disciples. It is rebellion in the name of God against the authority of God for the sake of preserving the authority of man.⁹

Considerations

When Roman Catholic apologists produce this dichotomy between rank individualism and the authority of the Magisterium, they assert a false dilemma. Reformed Protestants do not promote the authority of the individual to decide matters of doctrine in the same manner secular society promotes individualism. Rather, they stake out a position in which the Church still has real and functional authority. Subordinating the Church to Scripture is not the same as subordinating the Church to rank individualism, and rejecting the Roman Catholic view of authority does not entail a rejection of all authority outside of the individual.

Perhaps a detailed argument could be made that even the more sophisticated and nuanced version of sola Scriptura entails radical individualism. But I'm not aware of what a successful version of that argument would look like.

And, of course, even if there are proposed arguments like this, the critical problem is how little sola Scriptura is properly engaged in published literature or distinguished between the approach used by some radically individualistic Evangelical Protestants.¹⁰ This is neither honest nor intelligent, and deserves to be dismissed for what it is.

____________

1. John Calvin, Institutes of the Christian Religion, IV.9.7. Supporting arguments are developed (rather well) in the previous sections of the chapter.

2. Ibid., IV.9.8.

3. David, L. Gray, Dead on Arrival: The Seven Fatal Errors of Sola-Scriptura, Vol. I, (Xenia, Ohio: Erehmai Uoyevoli, 2010), 75-77.

4. Patrick Madrid, Where is That In the Bible? (Huntington, IN: Our Sunday Visitor, 2001), 20-21.

5. Calvin, Institutes, IV.9.13

6. Louis Berkhof, Systematic Theology, New Combined Edition (Cambridge, UK: Eerdmans, 1996), 25.

7. William Whitaker, Disputations on Holy Scripture (Cambridge: Parker Society, 1894; reprint, Orlando: Soli Deo Gloria Publications, 2005), 433-434.

8. Westminster Confession of Faith, XXXI/i-iii.

9. Keith Mathison, "A Critique of the Evangelical Doctrine of Solo Scriptura." http://www.the-highway.com/Sola_Scriptura_Mathison.html (accessed 8/13/10).

10. I haven't kept up with all of the most recent literature, so it's possible the polemical landscape has changed in recent years to reflect a more nuanced approach to sola Scriptura. My experience in both reading Roman Catholic literature and engaging the fruits of the teachings of popular Catholic apologetic ministries and resources (via discussions on blogs, online boards, in person, etc.) strongly suggests otherwise. However, it is an area in which I hope my conclusions turn out to be false; it would be much better to have a proper representation of sola Scriptura in discussions of the subject.

Newman's Doctrine of Development Rests on a Logical Fallacy

One of the best, short, sweet, simple critiques of Newman's Development of Doctrine, was crafted by Dr. William Witt, a professor at a conservative Anglican seminary, here:

http://willgwitt.org/theology/on-the-development-of-doctrine

My own reasons for not becoming Roman Catholic have not changed. It was precisely the problem of doctrinal development that I found unsatisfactory. I believe that J. B. Mozley’s The Theory of Development provides the decisive critique of [John Henry] Newman on development of doctrine. Mozley argues that Newman commits a logical fallacy of amphiboly by not distinguishing between two different kinds of development. Newman is correct that there is genuine development in the early church....the “development” of incarnational and Trinitarian doctrine that takes place at Nicea, Chalcedon, etc., is really simply the necessary logical unfolding of what is already clearly present in the New Testament. If Jesus is fully God, then he must “of the same substance” as God. If the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit are equally God, and yet there is only one God, then God must be three persons in one nature....

Mozley speaks of this kind of development in terms of what I will call “Development 1.” Development 1 adds nothing to the original content of faith, but rather brings out its necessary implications. Mozley says that Aquinas is doing precisely this kind of development in his discussion of the incarnation in the Summa Theologiae.

There is another kind of development, however, which I will call “Development 2.” Development 2 is genuinely new development that is not simply the necessary articulation of what is said explicitly in the Scriptures.

Classic examples of Development 2 would include the differences between the doctrine of the theotokos and the dogmas of the immaculate conception or the assumption of the Blessed Virgin Mary. In the former, Marian dogma is not actually saying something about Mary, but rather something about Christ. If Jesus Christ is truly God, and Mary is his mother, then Mary is truly the Mother of God (theotokos). She gives birth, however, to Jesus’ humanity, not his eternal person, which has always existed and is generated eternally by the Father. The doctrine of the theotokos is a necessary implication of the incarnation of God in Christ, which is clearly taught in the New Testament. However, the dogmas of the immaculate conception and the assumption are not taught in Scripture, either implicitly or explicitly. They are entirely new developments.

The same would be true, of course, for the doctrine of the papacy. The New Testament says much about the role of Simon Peter as a leader of the apostles. It does not say anything explicit, however, about the bishop of Rome being the successor to Peter. The Eastern fathers, e.g., Cyprian, interpret the Petrine passages that Rome has applied to the papacy as applying to all bishops.

C.S. Lewis, also in his essay "Christian Reunion," cited this in his decision not to become a Roman Catholic: "to accept your Church means not to accept a given body of doctrine but to accept in advance any doctrine that your Church hereafter produces."

[Edited to correct the spelling of "amphiboly" and provide the link to its definition: Linguistically, an amphiboly is an ambiguity which results from ambiguous grammar, as opposed to one that results from the ambiguity of words or phrases—that is, Equivocation. The fallacy of Amphiboly occurs when a bad argument trades upon grammatical ambiguity to create an illusion of cogency. Amphibolies are often linguistic boobytraps, but less frequently do they occur in fallacious arguments.]

Resurrection of the dead is only “symbolically” proclaimed in the Bible, says this author.

Here’s a little word picture for consideration especially by our Roman Catholic friends for whom “intellectual inconsistency” is a dirty word and a dangerous concept.

I have come across this, because it was brought to my attention by a Reformed brother who I met through a Reformed discussion board. He was concerned that this particular author (whom I will cite at length) simply did not believe in the Resurrection. Not the Resurrection of Christ, nor the physical resurrection of the body at the end of the age.

Here is a key passage from our author in question:

The foregoing reflections may have made a little clearer what is involved in the biblical pronouncements about the resurrection: their essential content is not the conception of a restoration of bodies to souls after a long interval: their aim is to tell men that they, themselves, live on; not by virtue of their own power but because they are known and loved by God in such a way that they can no longer perish.

In contrast to the dualistic conception of immortality expressed in the Greek body-soul schema, the biblical formula of immortality through awakening is trying to impart a collective and dialogic conception of immortality: the essential part of man, the person remains; that which has ripened in the course of this earthly existence of corporeal spirituality and spiritualized corporeality goes on existing in a different fashion. It goes on existing because it lives in God’s memory. And because it is the man himself who will live, not an isolated soul, the element of human fellowship is also part of the future; for this reason the future of the individual man will only then be full when the future of humanity is fulfilled.

Now, this seems to me as a classic liberal re-definition of the physical resurrection, and a lot like a kind of pantheism. But I don’t want to rush to judgment. And of course, in the spirit of this blog, we of course intend to provide context, and lots of it.

My dilemma is that I have not read huge amounts from this author, though I likely will read more in the future.

But I do have one of the books in question, and so I want to back up from that previous paragraph, a few pages, and to provide, at some length, the “foregoing reflections” from this author, just to be sure we are not misquoting him, or misunderstanding him, or taking him out of context.

We have discovered anew the indivisibility of man; we live our corporeality with a new intensity and feel it as the indispensable mode of realization of the one being of man. From this angle we can understand afresh the biblical message, which promises immortality not to a separated soul but to the whole man. Such feelings have in this [20th] century made evangelical theology in particular turn emphatically against the Greek doctrine of the immortality of the soul, which is wrongly regarded as a Christian idea too. In reality, so it is said, this idea expresses a thoroughly un-Christian dualism; the Christian faith knows only of the waking of the dead by God’s power. But doubts arise at once here: the Greek doctrine of immortality may well be problematical, but is not the biblical assertion still more incapable of fulfillment for us? The unity of man, fine, but who can imagine, on the basis of our present-day image of the world, a resurrection of the body?

“The unity of man, fine.” So this concept of “the indivisibility of man,” “the unity of man,” is what is established by this writer in what precedes. And then, he begins to discuss what implications this has for the Christian doctrine of “the resurrection of the body.” Continuing with this thought:

This resurrection would also imply – or so it seems, at any rate – a new heaven and a new earth; it would require immortal bodies needing no sustenance, and a completely different condition of matter. But is this not all completely absurd, quite contrary to our understanding of matter and its modes of behavior, and therefore hopelessly mythological? Well I think that in fact one can only arrive at an answer if one enquires carefully into the real intentions of the biblical statement and at the same time considers anew the relation between the biblical and the Greek ideas.

Now this is an idea that we can all embrace. We must “enquire carefully into the real intentions of the biblical statement” no doubt mentioned above that immortality is promised “not to a separated soul but to the whole man.” Again, not having read this author, I’m not sure what he means by this statement, but if we assume his prior analysis about “the whole man” is correct, then what follows is certain to be understandable in that light. Right?

For their encounter with each other [Greek and biblical ideas about immortality of man and the resurrection of the body] has modified both conceptions and thus overlaid the original intentions of both approaches with a new combined view which we must first remove if we want to find our way back to the beginning. First of all, the hope of the resurrection of the dead simply represents the basic form of the biblical hope of immortality; it appears in the New Testament not really as a supplement to a preceding and independent immortality of the soul but as the fundamental statement on the fate of man.

Amen and amen!

There were, it is true, in late Jewish teachings hints of immortality on the Greek pattern, and this was probably one of the reasons why very soon the all-embracing scope of the idea of resurrection in the Graeco-Roman world was no longer grasped. Instead, the Greek notion of the immortality of the soul and the biblical message of the resurrection of the dead was each understood as half the answer to the question of the fate of man and the two were added together. It was thought that the already existing Greek fore-knowledge about the immortality of the soul had added to it by the Bible the revelation that at the end of the world bodies would be awoken too, to share henceforth for ever the fate of the soul – damnation or bliss.

As opposed to this, we must grasp the fact that originally it was not a question of two complementary ideas; on the contrary, we are confronted with two different total views, which cannot simply be added together: the image of man, of God and of the future, is in each case quite different, and thus at bottom each of the two views can only be understood as an attempt at a total answer to the question of human fate.

The Greek conception is based on the idea that man is composed of two intrinsically alien substances, one of which (the body) perishes, while the other (the soul) is in itself imperishable and therefore goes on existing in its own right independent of any other beings. Indeed, it was only in the separation from its essentially alien body, so it was thought, that the soul came into its own.

So here we have from our author an articulation of “the Greek conception” of the immortality of the soul. This seems accurate enough. Now for his analysis of the biblical conception:

The biblical train of thought, on the other hand, presupposes the undivided unity of man [there we have that idea again, from above]; for example, Scripture contains no word denoting only the body (separated and distinguished from the soul), while conversely in the vast majority of cases the word soul too means the whole corporeally existing man; the few places where a different view can be discerned hover to a certain extent between Greek and Hebrew thinking and in any case by no means abandon the old view. The awakening of the dead (not of bodies!) of which Scripture speaks is thus concerned with the salvation of the one, undivided man, not just with the fate of one (so far as possible secondary) half of man [italics and parentheses in original]. It now also becomes clear that the real heart of the faith in the resurrection does not consist at all in the idea of the restoration of the body, to which we have reduced it in our thinking; such is the case even though this is the pictorial image used throughout the Bible. What then, is the real content of the hope symbolically proclaimed in the Bible in the shape of the resurrection of the dead? I think that this can best be worked out by means of a comparison with the dualistic conception of ancient philosophy [bold emphasis added].

Aha, here is a reason to be cautious with this writer.

In conjunction with the statement approaching pantheism that I noted at the beginning, this statement too ought to raise some red flags, especially for our perceptive readers (Sean Patrick, Paul Hoffer, David Waltz) who do not tolerate “inconsistency”. (Of course, these guys, being as perceptive and as well-read as they claim to be, almost certainly have seen through my ploy by this point, and are ready with exceptions to their doctrine of “inconsistency”.)

Like the fabled Peter Lampe, who does not believe that Paul wrote the “Pastoral Epistles,” this writer says that “the hope of the resurrection of the dead” is only “symbolically proclaimed” in the Bible.

We should rightfully be cautious of this man who thinks of the resurrection of the dead as being merely “symbolically proclaimed in the Bible.”

More to follow.

Luther: Marriage is a Secular Business

The following is from the web page Luther, Exposing the Myth, under the heading "Marriage and Women":

"Know that Marriage is an outward material thing like any other secular business. The body has nothing to do with God. In this respect one can never sin against God, but only against one’s neighbour" [Weimar, Vol. 12, Pg. 131].

Luther Exposing the Myth says their stated purpose is to show that "from Luther’s own words we shall see him for what he really was, that is a rebellious apostate, who abandoned the faith and led many into apostasy from God under the guise of “reformation” in order to follow his perverse inclinations." With this quote, they attempt to show Christ taught the value of marriage as spiritual, while Luther taught marriage was secular, and in it, one can't sin against God.

Documentation
Luther, Exposing the Myth probably took this quote from Martin Luther, Hitler's spiritual Ancestor by Peter Wiener. Wiener states,

I am reluctant, more than reluctant, to quote some of [Luther's] sayings; and yet I have to do it if I want to be complete. For the degradation of womanhood and the taking away of all the sacred character of marriage is one of the main reasons why Germany with Luther began its unchristian way down the hi..[sic] “Since wedlock and marriage are a worldly business, we clergy and ministers of the Church have nothing to order or decree about it, but must leave each town and country to follow its own usage and custom.” In other words, Luther is not interested in it. Marriage is to him just like any other manual labour, something to be ruled by local traditions, without any kind of Christian standard. “Marriage,” he says, “is an external bodily thing, like any other manipulation.” “Know that marriage is an outward material thing like any other secular business.” “The body has nothing to do with God. In this respect one can never sin against God, but only against one's neighbour”(W12, 131).

It's likely Wiener didn't actually read Luther in grabbing these quotes, but rather took them from other secondary sources. With the quote in question, I'm certain he didn't get it from the source he (and Luther Exposing the Myth) cite. Here is Wiemar Vol. 12 page 131. While the immediate context does include some passing comments on marriage, there is nothing even remotely similar to this quote in question on the page. WA 12, 131 is a page from Luther's commentary on 1 Corinthians 7. The English translation is found in LW 28 (WA 12, 131 can be found in LW 28:44-45). The reference is bogus.

Notice the quote, as cited by Luther, Exposing the Myth, doesn't make much sense? If one looks closely, it appears Wiener is using two different quotes, which Luther, Exposing the Myth didn't catch. The first part of the quote comes from WA 10,2, 283, "Uom Eelichen Leben," or The Estate of Marriage, which is found in LW 45:25. The other part of the quote probably comes from WA 12, 132 (which is found in LW 28:46).

Context
The Estate of Marriage discusses the eighteen impediments of marriage which ruled the day during Luther's time. These contained rules on who was allowed to marry who. Luther was discussing the fifth impediment, that one is not allowed to marry "a Turk, a Jew, or a heretic"[LW 45:24]. Luther says such a rule is in direct contradiction to 1 Corinthians 7:12-13 (if any brother has a wife who is an unbeliever, and she consents to live with him, he must not divorce her. And a woman who has an unbelieving husband, and he consents to live with her, she must not send her husband away). Luther then states,

Know therefore that marriage is an outward, bodily thing, like any other worldly undertaking. Just as I may eat, drink, sleep, walk, ride with, buy from, speak to, and deal with a heathen, Jew, Turk, or heretic, so I may also marry and continue in wedlock with him. Pay no attention to the precepts of those fools who forbid it. You will find plenty of Christians—and indeed the greater part of them—who are worse in their secret unbelief than any Jew, heathen, Turk, or heretic. A heathen is just as much a man or a woman—God’s good creation—as St. Peter, St. Paul, and St. Lucy, not to speak of a slack and spurious Christian [LW 45:25].

That's the first line of the quote in question. The context is about the freedom to marry whom one will, which should not be regulated by the church.

The second part of the quote comes from LW 28. Luther while commenting on 1 Cor. 7:23, addresses this same theme: "When someone teaches that a Christian may not marry a non-Christian and remain with her—as the rules of the church do—he obstructs the freedom that St. Paul teaches us here and forces people to obey these rules more than God’s Word" [LW 28:44]. He wraps up that section by noting while God has given us freedom from such rules, the rules of particular relationships among people are still intact. For instance, wives are still subject to their husbands.

Luther then begins commenting on 1.Cor. 7:24, building upon this idea of responsibility in human relationships. God has set his people free from keeping the law in order to achieve salvation. The only responsibility of a Christian is to believe and confess (LW 28:45). On the other hand, Christians are still responsible to their neighbors:

But because in this relationship you are bound up with your neighbor and have become his servant, it is God’s will that no one be deprived of what is his by means of His freedom but rather that those things of your neighbor be protected. For although God pays no attention to these things on His own account, He pays attention to them on account of your neighbor. This is what he means with the words “with God,” as though He were admonishing us: “I did not make you free among men or with your neighbor, for I do not wish that which is his taken from him until he gives you permission. But you are entirely free with Me and cannot ruin yourself in My sight by keeping to or refraining from outward things.” Therefore notice this and differentiate between the freedom existing in your relation to God and the freedom existing in your relation to your neighbor. In the former this freedom is present, in the latter it is not, and for this reason: God gives you this freedom only in the things that are yours, not in what is your neighbor’s. There differentiate between what is yours and what is your neighbors. That is why no man can leave his wife, for his body is not his own but his wife’s, and vice versa. Likewise the servant and his body do not belong to him himself but to his master. It would be of no importance to God if the husband were to leave his wife, for the body is not bound to God but made free by Him for all outward things and is only God’s by virtue of inward faith. But among men these promises are to be kept. In sum: We owe nobody anything but to love (Rom. 13:8) and to serve our neighbor through love. Where love is present, there it is accomplished that no eating, drinking, clothing, or living in a particular way endangers the conscience or is a sin before God, except when it is detrimental to one’s neighbor. In such things one cannot sin against God but only against one’s neighbor [LW 28:45].

In this context, Wiener's "the body has nothing to with God" simply means that a Christian has been given freedom by God. There are no rules to be kept to keep one justified before him. On the other hand, the body could still very well belong to another, like a husband's body is the property of his wife. Wiener's "one can never sin against God, but only against one's neighbour" simply means that if one is judged by God covered with the righteousness of Christ, sin against God is not counted. On the other hand, a sin against one's neighbor is still indeed a sin against one's neighbor.

Conclusion
Luther taught a life under the cross, which is a life of discipleship of following after Christ. Our crosses though, do not save. They serve the neighbor. We are called to be neighbor to those around us. Justification is by faith alone unto good works done for the good of one’s neighbor. This idea runs throughout Luther's written corpus.

For Luther, marriage was indeed "the God-appointed and legitimate union of a man and woman" with its ultimate purpose to glorify God (WA 43:310). But as to its working and maintenance, Luther sought to have such matters governed by the state. It wasn't the job of the church to come up with marriage rules and regulations. Like clothing, food, and houses, the working of marriage should be something regulated by secular authority.

While some may think such a paradigm sets forth humanistic anarchy, keep in mind in Luther's time the power of the Roman church had perpetuated a mess with marriage regulations, and his was a direct reaction to that. The worldview at the time took for granted that marriage was between a man and a woman. He did not foresee a secular authority that would redefine marriage (i.e. homosexual marriage). Of such a legalization, he would have been horrified ["God revenges and punishes the forbidden marriage,  so that Sodom and Gomorrah, which God overwhelmed in days of old with fire and brimstone" LW 46:198]. Nor would he be against rebuking a modern-day Pilate (WA 28:361), and that passive Resistance in certain conditions is justified.

Luther was not an enemy of marriage, but spoke highly of it, and valued it. Such sentiment can be found throughout his writings. This type of information though was ignored by Luther, Exposing the Myth.

The Gospel for Muslims

Here is an excellent gospel presentation by David Wood, for Muslims, answering the question that Muslims often ask, "How can God die?"

David uses the Bible, and verses from the Qur'an to make his point and to present the truths of the incarnation and the atonement to Muslims. David shows from the Qur'an that Allah is able to do things like to actually be in the fire ("Blessed is He who is in the fire") and speak from the fire to Moses (Qur'an 27:7-9), and so this shows that Allah can do things like, enter into His own creation, become flesh (John 1:1-5; 1:14; see also Luke 1:34-35). He shows that the Qur'an limits Allah, because "Allah does not love sinners" (Qur'an 2:190; 2:276; 3:32; 3:57; 7:31; 4:36; 8:58; 28:77; 57:23); yet the Bible says, "God demonstrates His own love toward us, in that while we were yet sinners, Christ died for us" Romans 5:8

And Romans 5:10 teaches that Christ died for His enemies, which even the Grandverbalizer19, a Muslim, confessed is "greater love".

A Muslim admits that one dying for His enemies is greater love

Let's learn to share the gospel with Muslims, read and use parts of the Qur'an (NOT burn it) to help them understand the difference between Islam, and truth, Al Haqq الحق the Bible. Speak the truth in love to Muslims and respect them as people and seek evangelistic opportunities in the context of hospitality, which is a great cultural value in Muslim cultures.

Luther: Adulterous Women are Saved

The following is from the web page Luther, Exposing the Myth, under the heading "Marriage and Women":

“Suppose I should counsel the wife of an impotent man, with his consent, to giver herself to another, say her husband’s brother, but to keep this marriage secret and to ascribe the children to the so-called putative father. The question is: Is such a women in a saved state? I answer, certainly" [On Marriage].

Luther Exposing the Myth says their stated purpose is to show that "from Luther’s own words we shall see him for what he really was, that is a rebellious apostate, who abandoned the faith and led many into apostasy from God under the guise of “reformation” in order to follow his perverse inclinations." With this quote, they attempt to show Christ taught against adultery, while Luther blatantly sanctioned it.

Documentation
Luther, Exposing the Myth merely cites "On Marriage" without any location reference (version, volume, page number etc.). This quote was probably plagiarized from this secondary source. Notice the similarities:

Luther did write a treatise on marriage entitled The Estate of Marriage, 1522 (LW 45; Uom Eelichen Leben, WA 10{II}, 275–304). This quote though isn't from that treatise. It's from an entirely different treatise, De Captivitate Babylonica Ecclesiae, 1520 (WA 6:497-573). The quote can be found at WA 6:558,

This treatise has been translated a number of times into English: The Babylonian Captivity of the Church. It is found in LW 36. The quote under scrutiny can be found at LW 36:103.

Historical Context
Marriage in the sixteenth century was regulated by a confusing papal jurisdiction, influenced by such writings like The Summa de Casibus Conscientiae. That work listed eighteen impediments to marriage. The New Schaff-Herzog Encyclopedia of Religious Knowledge likewise outlines many of the complicated rules of marriage (see vol. VII: 200-203). As the Reformation took away the influence of the Roman church, the rules surrounding marriage needed to be addressed.

Luther had earlier discussed man-made rules surrounding marriage in The Babylonian Captivity of the Church [LW 36:97]. The prevailing marriage rules lead to a number of abuses (for instance, secret marriages, and confusing legal entanglements). What was Luther's solution to the papal mess of marriage rules? Evaluate them, toss out a number of them and try to come up with a simpler and better system regulated in most part by the state. In The Estate of Marriage Luther begins by stating,

How I dread preaching on the estate of marriage! I am reluctant to do it because I am afraid if I once get really involved in the subject it will make a lot of work for me and for others. The shameful confusion wrought by the accursed papal law has occasioned so much distress, and the lax authority of both the spiritual and the temporal swords has given rise to so many dreadful abuses and false situations, that I would much prefer neither to look into the matter nor to hear of it. [LW 45:17].

Luther begins The Estate of Marriage by making three points. First, God made men and women, and each should honor the other as creation of God. Second, he discusses the blessing of "be fruitful and multiply" and how God has built this desire into mankind. He then notes three classes of people that cannot "be fruitful and multiply." "...in Matthew 19[:12], 'There are eunuchs who have been so from birth, and there are eunuchs who have been made eunuchs by men, and there are eunuchs who have made themselves eunuchs for the sake of the kingdom of heaven.' Apart from these three groups, let no man presume to be without a spouse" [LW 45:18]. In regard to the first classification, these Luther describes as impotent, and exempt from "be fruitful and multiply."

Context
In The Babylonian Captivity of the Church, Luther had earlier expounded on a special situation regarding impotent people:

Consider the following case: A woman, wed to an impotent man, is unable to prove her husband’s impotence in court, or perhaps she is unwilling to do so with the mass of evidence and all the notoriety which the law demands; yet she is desirous of having children or is unable to remain continent. Now suppose I had counseled her to procure a divorce from her husband in order to marry another, satisfied that her own and her husband’s conscience and their experience were ample testimony of his impotence; but the husband refused his consent to this. Then I would further counsel her, with the consent of the man (who is not really her husband, but only a dweller under the same roof with her), to have intercourse with another, say her husband’s brother, but to keep this marriage secret and to ascribe the children to the so-called putative father. The question is: Is such a woman saved and in a saved state? I answer: Certainly, because in this case an error, ignorance of the man’s impotence, impedes the marriage; and the tyranny of the laws permits no divorce. But the woman is free through the divine law, and cannot be compelled to remain continent. Therefore the man ought to concede her right, and give up to somebody else the wife who is his only in outward appearance [LW 36:103].

He picks up the same theme again The Estate of Marriage:

I once wrote down some advice concerning such persons for those who hear confession. It related to those cases where a husband or wife comes and wants to learn what he should do: his spouse is unable to fulfil the conjugal duty, yet he cannot get along without it because he finds that God’s ordinance to multiply is still in force within him. Here they have accused me of teaching that when a husband is unable to satisfy his wife’s sexual desire she should run to somebody else. Let the topsyturvy liars spread their lies. The words of Christ and his apostles were turned upside down; should they not also turn my words topsy-turvy? To whose detriment it will be they shall surely find out.

What I said was this: if a woman who is fit for marriage has a husband who is not, and she is unable openly to take unto hersell another—and unwilling, too, to do anything dishonorable—since the pope in such a case demands without cause abundant testimony and evidence, she should say to her husband, “Look, my dear husband, you are unable to fulfil your conjugal duty toward me; you have cheated me out of my maidenhood and even imperiled my honor and my soul's salvation; in the sight of God there is no real marriage between us. Grant me the privilege of contracting a secret marriage with your brother or closest relative, and you retain the title of husband so that your property will not fall to strangers. Consent to being betrayed voluntarily by me, as you have betrayed me without my consent.”

I stated further that the husband is obligated to consent to such an arrangement and thus to provide for her the conjugal duty and children, and that if he refuses to do so she should secretly flee from him to some other country and there contract a marriage. I gave this advice at a time when I was still timid. However, I should like now to give sounder advice in the matter, and take a firmer grip on the wool of a man who thus makes a fool of his wife. The same principle would apply if the circumstances were reversed, although this happens less frequently in the case of wives than of husbands. It will not do to lead one’s fellow-man around by the nose so wantonly in matters of such great import involving his body, goods, honor, and salvation. He has to be told to make it right.[LW 45:19-20]

Conclusion
What would provoke Luther's view? He explains that the popular rules surrounding marriage and impotence were fraught with trouble:

The fourteenth impediment is the one touched on already, when a husband or wife is unfit for marriage. Among these eighteen impediments this one is the only sound reason for dissolving a marriage. Yet it is hedged about by so many laws that it is difficult to accomplish with the ecclesiastical tyrants [LW 45:29].

Another motivating factor behind such comments like this from Luther is a deep disdain for divorce. Steven Ozment notes:

Luther personally preferred secret bigamy to divorce and remarriage, when a marriage had irretrievably broken down. He sanctioned such an arrangement for women with impotent husbands as early as 1521. If a woman in such a situation could not take her case to the divorce court out of fear of notoriety, he advised that she enter with her husband's consent a secret marriage with his brother or another male mutually agreed upon, and raise any children of this second union as if they were those of the impotent husband. Luther preferred such an arrangement to outright divorce because he believed it ensured continuing companionship and support for each spouse (in this case, psychological for the husband and financial for the wife), while at the same time it prevented whoring and adultery on the part of the healthy spouse (in this case, the wife), who gained from it a regular sexual outlet [Steven Ozment, Protestants, The Birth of a Revolution (New York: Image Books, 1991), p. 163]

But before the defenders of Rome pick up rocks to throw at Luther, the term annulment is used when Rome's authority determines a true marriage between the persons concerned is invalid. Would not the situation described by Luther probably fall under annulment? Consider the following from the Code of Canon Law:

Canon 1084 of the code of Canon Law; §1 Antecedent and perpetual impotence to have sexual intercourse, whether on the part of the man or on that of the woman, whether absolute or relative, by its very nature invalidates marriage.

If one applies a Roman paradigm to the situation described by Luther, a Roman court evaluating the same case could very well grant the annulment, allowing the non-impotent spouse to remarry. In which case, the non-impotent spouse remarries, and produces children. The effect being that in Luther's words, the spouse runs to another to have sexual desire fulfilled. The impotent ex-spouse, in the fabric of sixteenth century society,could face dire consequences. While Luther's solution is fraught with trouble, the Roman solution likewise suffers. It appears from Luther's comments, the Roman system handled such cases poorly, particularly if the innocent party was female.

Granted, Luther's solutions solve some problems but cause others. I don't condone Luther's view, at all. I do think though that Roman criticism is unjustified: it assumes sixteenth century Romanism had a better solution, which it did not.

Calvin on Radical Individualism

Contrary to a modern mindset of some Evangelical Protestants, who change churches as one would change outfits to fit the caprice of fashion and weather, Calvin approached the issue of church fellowship with decidedly more caution:

Be this as it may, when the preaching of the gospel is reverently heard, and the sacraments are not neglected, there for the time the face of the Church appears without deception or ambiguity; and no man may with impunity spurn her authority, or reject her admonitions, or resist her counsels, or make sport of her censures, far less revolt from her, and violate her unity, (see Chap. 2 sec. 1, 10, and Chap. 3. sec. 12.) For such is the value which the Lord sets on the communion of his Church, that all who contumaciously alienate themselves from any Christian society, in which the true ministry of his word and sacraments is maintained, he regards as deserters of religion. So highly does he recommend her authority, that when it is violated he considers that his own authority is impaired.

...

I admit, that it is a great disgrace if dogs and swine are admitted among the children of God; much more, if the sacred body of Christ is prostituted to them. And, indeed, when churches are well regulated, they will not bear the wicked in their bosom, nor will they admit the worthy and unworthy indiscriminately to that sacred feast. But because pastors are not always sedulously vigilant, are sometimes also more indulgent than they ought, or are prevented from acting so strictly as they could wish; the consequence is, that even the openly wicked are not always excluded from the fellowship of the saints. This I admit to be a vice, and I have no wish to extenuate it, seeing that Paul sharply rebukes it in the Corinthians. But although the Church fail in her duty, it does not therefore follow that every private individual is to decide the question of separation for himself. I deny not that it is the duty of a pious man to withdraw from all private intercourse with the wicked, and not entangle himself with them by any voluntary tie; but it is one thing to shun the society of the wicked, and another to renounce the communion of the Church through hatred of them. (Institutes, IV.i.10, 15)

Oscar Cullmann on the relationship between oral tradition and the canon of the New Testament, part 2

Continuing from my previous post.

Slight clarification here. In the citation from Cullmann that follows, he is using the words "apostolic tradition" to describe "the sum of what the Apostles taught, both orally and in written form." He makes a distinction between "apostolic tradition," which was the definitive, eyewitness testimony of the Apostles, and what later became "ecclesiastical tradition," that is, the traditions of the church.

Cullmann is in the process of making the case that the canon of the New Testament became fixed, as a necessity, because of the damage that was being inflicted by various gnostic heresies: "oral" tradition was no longer reliable because it was becoming an admixture of too many things. The only reliable "apostolic tradition" was that which had been written down by the apostles and their associates during the lifetimes of the apostles.

By establishing the principle of a canon the Church recognized that from that time the tradition was no longer a criterion of truth. It drew a line under the apostolic tradition. It declared implicitly that from that time every subsequent tradition must be submitted to the control of the aposotlic tradition. That is, it declared: here is the tradition which constituted the Church, which forced itself upon it. Certainly the Church did not intend to thereby put an end to the continued evolution of the tradition. But by what we might all an act of humility it submitted all subsequent tradition to be elaborated by itself to the superior criterion of the apostolic tradition, codified in the Holy Scriptures.

To establish a canon is equivalent to saying this: henceforth our ecclesiastical tradition needs to be controlled; with the help of the Holy Spirit it will be controlled by the apostolic tradition fixed in writing; for we are getting to the point where we are too distant from the apostolic age to be able to guard the purity of the tradition without a superior written norm, and too distant to prevent slight legendary and other deformations creeping in, and thus being transmitted and amplified(90).

Well, while the early church understood the danger of "legendary and other deformations creeping in, thus being transmitted and amplified," it would seem that this has become the creed of the Roman Catholic Church: "We know that legendary and other deformations have crept into our dogmas, where they are transmitted and amplified. And we embrace these legendary and other deformations, and we press them on the consciences of loyal Roman Catholics."

But I digress. After some further justification of the process above: the need to fix a norm by fixing the Canon of the New Testament, Cullman notes something about the character of the Apostolic Fathers that I had noticed and have even commented on, but have not until this time been able to put it all together:

For a long time it has been noted that, apart from the letters of Ignatius, the writings of the so-called Apostolic Fathers, who do not really belong to the Apostolic age but to the beginning of the second century—[1 Clement, Barnabas, the Shepherd of Hermas]—despite their theological interest, are to a considerable distance from New Testament thought, and to a considerable extent relapse into a moralism which ignores the notion of grace, and of the redemptive death of Christ, so central to apostolic theology. [See Torrance’s “The Doctrine of Grace in the Apostolic Fathers,” 1948].

It has also been noted that the Church Fathers who wrote after 150—Irenaeus and Tertullian—although chronologically more remote from the New Testament than the authors of the first half of the century, understood infinitely better the essence of the gospel. This seems paradoxical, but is explained perfectly by that most important act, the codification of the apostolic tradition in a canon, henceforward the superior norm of all tradition.

The Fathers of the first half of the century wrote at a period when the writings of the New Testament already existed, but without being vested with canonical authority, and so set apart. Therefore they did not have any norm at their disposal, and, on the other hand, and on the other hand, they were already too far distant from the apostolic age to be able to draw directly on the testimony of eye-witnesses. The encounters of Polycarp and Papias with apostolic persons could no longer guarantee a pure transmission of authentic traditions, as is proved by the extant fragments of their writings.

But after 150 contact with the apostolic age was re-established through the construction of the canon, which discarded all impure and deformed sources of information. Thus it is confirmed that, by subordinating all subsequent tradition to the canon, the Church once and for all saved its apostolic basis. It enabled its members to hear, thanks to this canon, continually afresh and throughout all the centuries to come the authentic word of the apostles, a privilege which no oral tradition, passing through Polycarp or Papias, could have assured them (96).

The written fixation of the witness of the apostles is one of the essential facts of the incarnation. The church of 150 AD consciously set about to formulate a canon, to put an end to the numerous apocryphal works that had been appearing in the first part of the second century, fueling the expansion of the different heresies.

Andreas Kostenberger and Michael Kruger largely concur with this process, adding that first, the Apostles would have been more than familiar with the concept of covenant, the need for covenant documents. The books of Moses provided this very set of documentation. In their own era, there were, of course, the Apostles saw to o that the Gospels, and the various letters that they knew had been written. Kostenberger and Kruger then note:

Although the term “closed canon” is most commonly used to refer to fourth-century ecclesiastical decisions, there is a real sense in which the canon, in principle, was “closed” long before that time. In the Muratorian Fragment (c. 170), the very popular Shepherd of Hermas is mentioned as a book that can be read by the church but is rejected as canonical. The grounds for this rejection are due to the fact that it was written “very recently, in our own times.” In other words, the author of the fragment reflects the conviction that early Christians were not willing to accept books written in the second century or later, but had restricted themselves to books from the apostolic time period. They seemed to have understood that the apostolic phase of redemptive history was uniquely the time when canonical books were produced. [Jason Engwer has commented on this section, noting that they could have expanded this so much more than they did. See here.]

Thus, from this perspective, the canon was “closed” by the beginning of the second century. After this time (and long before Athanasius), the church was not “open” to more books, but instead was engaged in discussions about which books God had already given. In other words, due to the theological conviction of the early Christians about the foundational role of the apostles, there was a built-in sense that the canon was “closed” after the apostolic time period had ended.

Note that the books themselves carried the marks of “canonicity.” Kostenberger and Kruger cite Herman Ridderbos:

When understood in terms of the history of redemption, the canon cannot be open; in principle it must be closed. That follows directly from the unique and exclusive nature of the power of the apostles received from Christ and from the commission he gave to them to be witnesses to what they had seen and heard of the salvation he had brought. The result of this power and commission os the foundation of the church and the creation of the canon, and therefore these are naturally unrepeatable and exclusive in character.

Meanwhile, it was not the authority of “the Church” which determined the canon. In reality, as Cullmann notes, it was the decision of the church (in fixing the canon) determined that “oral tradition” was becoming too corrupted to be useful.

By establishing the principle of a canon the Church recognized that from that time the tradition was no longer a criterion of truth.

The Late Development of the Bishop of Rome

John Bugay has posted on Hermas and the structure of the early Roman church before. I don't have anything original to add to that discussion.

However, I'd like to provide some corroboration by Roman Catholic scholars Raymond Brown and John Meier, whose book received both the Nihil Obstat and the Imprimatur (bold mine):

There is no doubt that it [The Shepherd of Hermas] was written at Rome (Vis. 1.1.1.; 2.1.1; 4.1.2); and the suggestion that Clement would send it abroad (Vis. 2.4.3) may mean that Hermas' revelations had church status in Rome...[characterizing the letter] Bernard ("Shepherd" 34-35) may be closer to the mark: "Thus I Clement, like Hermas, is a Christian work which leans heavily on late-Jewish and early Jewish-Christian tradition and apologetics, and this raises the question as to the composition of the Roman Church in the late first and early second centuries. There would appear to be grounds for thinking that the influence of the Jewish-Christian element in the Church remained strong into the second century." I would rephrase slightly, for I think of Rome as containing a dominant Jewish/Gentile Christianity that had strong loyalties to Jerusalem and the Jewish tradition. The author of Hermas may have been ethnically a pure Gentile, but he would be representative of that continuing strain of Christianity. The indication that there was still a church structure of presbyter-bishops and deacons⁴³³ indicates how conservative the Roman church was.¹

The footnote (#433) referenced above reads (bold mine):

433. See p. 163 above. All the references to presbyters and bishops are in the sections that some would judge chronologically early. However, if the men sitting on the bench in Man. 11.1 are presbyters, then the structure of presbyter-bishops lasted into the 140s. Telfer, Office 61, however, thinks it unquestionable that by the time Hermas was finished there was a single-bishop at Rome.²

Page 163 (and the previous page) reveals the following discussion (bold mine):

An older generation of Roman Catholic scholars assumed that the single-bishop practice was already in place in Rome in the 90s or earlier; and they opined that, as fourth pope (third from Peter), Clement was exercising the primacy of the bishop of Rome in giving directions to the church of Corinth. The failure of Clement to use his own name or speak personally should have called that theory into question from the start, were there not other decisive evidence against it. As the ecumenical book Peter in the New Testament (done by Roman Catholics and Protestants together) affirmed, the connection between a Petrine function in the first century and a fully developed Roman papacy required several centuries of development, so that it is anachronistic to think of the early Roman church leaders functioning as later popes (see footnote 275 above). Moreover, the Roman episcopal list shows confusion...All of this can be explained if we recognize that the threefold order of single-bishop, with subordinate presbyters and deacons, was not in place at Rome at the end of the first century; rather the twofold order of presbyter-bishops and deacons, attested a decade before in I Peter 5:1-5, was still operative. Indeed, the signal failure of Ignatius (ca. 110) to mention the single-bishop in his letter to the Romans (a very prominent theme in his other letters) and the usage of Hermas, which speaks of plural presbyters (Vis. 2.4.2) and bishops (Sim. 9.27.2), make it likely that the single-bishop structure did not come to Rome till ca. 140-150.³

Some observations:

1. This work received both the Nihil Obstat and the Imprimatur. It therefore carries more general weight than those whose only qualifications as Catholic apologists are a keyboard and an internet connection.

2. Brown and Meier are established Catholic scholars. They therefore carry more weight than otherwise unknown lay-Catholic apologists on the subject.

3. Brown and Meier state their position in direct contrast to previous generations of Roman Catholic scholars. Even on something as important as the nature of the church government of Rome, with particular application to the power and authority of the bishop(s) there, Catholic scholarship has not been consistent. This observation plays into a variety of problems with Roman Catholicism, some of which are fairly obvious.

4. There are lay-Catholic apologists who object to the term "Roman Catholic." This, however, is how Brown and Meier both refer to themselves and previous generations of scholars within their own denomination. If it's acceptable for Brown and Meier, and morally consistent with Catholicism proper (via the Nihil Obstat and Imprimatur), it should be acceptable to lay-Catholic internet apologists.

____________

1. Antioch and Rome: New Testament Cradles of Catholic Christianity (Mahwah, NJ: Paulist Press, 1983, 2004), 203-204.

2. Ibid., 204.

3. Ibid., 162-163.

Oscar Cullmann on the relationship between oral tradition and the canon of the New Testament, part 1

There is a discussion going on at Green Baggins on the topic of Oral Tradition. I contributed the following, which I've expanded and edited a bit; this has also gotten long enough that I'm going to relate it in two posts:

Nick asked: The $64 million question is: how do you know these inspired oral teachings were eventually enscripturated?

In his work, "Scripture and Tradition," (c) 1956, Oscar Cullman noted that something like this was precisely the Roman Catholic response to his 1953 work, “Peter: Disciple, Apostle, Martyr”.

One argument especially is brought forward: scripture, a collection of books, is not sufficient to actualize for us the divine revelation granted to the apostles. (Oscar Cullmann, “The Early Church,” London: SCM Press LTD., pg 57.

Some things don’t change.

Fortunately, Cullmann had the background and resources in his day to research the issues and to think it through. One of the things that I’m most excited about in reading Kostenberger and Kruger’s “The Heresy of Orthodoxy” is that they make essentially the same argument, and relate essentially the same facts.

I’m not sure why this work hasn’t been picked up by more Protestants. Cullmann puts forth this argument:

1. For Paul, the paradosis (“oral tradition”), in so far as it refers to the confession of faith and to the words and deeds of Jesus, has a parallel in the Jewish concept of paradosis.

2. This tradition relates to the direct apokalypsis of the Lord to the Apostles. That is, the office of the Apostles was unique because they provided unique eyewitness testimony to the life of Christ.

3. This tradition lived and died with the apostolic office. No other source had the eyewitness authority of the Apostles.

4. The development of the canon was a conscious decision on the part of the earliest church, born from the consciousness of the heresies spinning out of control, to establish a superior written norm, and to stake out the boundaries of orthodoxy and heresy.

Essentially, he says, the early church made a key distinction between “apostolic tradition,” that is, what the Apostles taught orally and in writing, and “post-apostolic” or “ecclesiastical” tradition.

This is the place to speak about the establishment of the canon by the Church of the second century. This again is an event of capital importance for the history of salvation. We are in complete agreement with Catholic theology in its insistence on the fact that the Church itself made the canon. We even find in this fact the supreme argument for our demonstration. The fixing of the Christian canon of scripture means that the Church itself, at a given time, traced a clear and definite line of demarcation between the period of the apostles and that of the Church, between the time of foundation and that of construction, between the apostolic community and the Church of the bishops, in other words, between apostolic and ecclesiastical tradition. Otherwise, the formation of the canon would be meaningless.

We must recall the situation that led the Church to conceive the idea of a canon. About the year 150 there is still an oral tradition. We know this from Papias, who wrote an exposition of the words of Jesus. He tells us himself that he used as a basis the viva vox and that he attached more importance to it than to the writings. But him we have not only this declaration of principle; for he has left us some examples of the oral tradition as he found it, and these examples show us well that we ought to think of an oral tradition about the year 150! It is entirely legendary in character. This is clear from the story that Papias reports about Joseph Barsabbas, the unsuccessful candidate, according to Acts 1/23 f., for the post of twelfth disciple rendered vacant by Judas’s treason. Above all there is the obscene and completely legendary account [in Papias] of death of Judas Iscariot himself.

The period about 150 is, on the one hand, relatively near to the apostolic age, but on the other hand, it is already too far away for the living tradition still to offer in itself the least guarantee of authenticity. The oral traditions which Papias echoes arose in the Church and were transmitted by it. For outside the Church no one had any interest in describing in such crude colours the death of the traitor. Papias was therefore deluding himself when he considered viva vox as more valuable than the written books. The oral tradition had a normative value in the period of the apostles, who were eye-witnesses, but it had it no longer in 150 after passing mouth to mouth (Cullmann, 88-89).

[It's important to note here that, while Cullman capitalizes the word "church," he uses the word in the proper sense; not in the sense that Roman Catholics use the word.]

What Cullman relates here is that the church (as reported by Papias) had greatly valued the living voice of the Apostles. But they recognized the thing that we (Protestants) have all along been saying: the “living voice” is not a reliable transmitter, after a point. As with the game of “telephone,” where a message becomes badly distorted after being passed from person to person, the value of this “living tradition” had seriously degraded.

The traditions reported by Papias are not the only ones. From the same period we have the first apocryphal Gospels, which were collections of other oral traditions. It is sufficient to read these Gospels, one of which tells of the infant Jesus making living sparrows, carrying water in his apron, and miraculously killing companions who were annoying him, or to read the numerous apocryphal Acts, in order to realize that the tradition, in the Church, no longer offered any guarantee of truth, even when it claimed a chain of succession. For all these traditions were justified by [various chains] of transmission reaching back to the apostles. Papias himself also makes this claim when he says that he got his information from people who had been in contact with the apostles. The teaching office of the Church in itself did not suffice to preserve the purity of the gospel (88-90).

This selection is long enough for now. But I wanted to make the essential point: the early church did recognize the weakness of relying on "the living voice."


For more information, see also: Jason Engwer's series on The New Testament Canon.