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“Why Doesn’t Everyone Agree with Me?” or Doctrinal Disagreement to the Glory of God
by C Michael PattonApril 7th, 2010
52 Comments
I am a Calvinist, others are Arminian. I believe in a premillenial eschatology, others are amillinial. I am a traducianist with regards to the creation of the soul, others are creationists. I believe in reasoned inerrancy, others believe that this is an archaic naive doctrine. There are many points of doctrinal division that I am going to have with people, some of which are much more important than others.
Why doesn’t everyone agree with me? Who is causing this disunity in the body of Christ, them or me? Do these divisions demonstrate the doctrinal bankruptcy of sola Scriptura? Should we elect of a Pope of Protestantism? Or could it be that God has a purpose in his allowance of disagreements?
There are a few different ways that I could answer this.
- Others don’t agree with me because they have not studied deep enough (lack of scholarship).
- Others don’t agree with me because they have not studied broad enough (lack of perspective).
- Others don’t agree with me because they have not studied long enough (lack of wisdom).
- Others don’t agree with me because their traditional prejudices have created a learning disability that keeps them from the truth (lack of freedom of thought).
- Others don’t agree with me because they have sin in their life that is blinding them to the truth (lack of holiness).
- Others don’t agree with me because we don’t have an infallible authoritative interpreter of Scripture that would bring doctrinal unity? (lack of a Pope)
- Others don’t agree with me because they are not Christian. If they were, well . . . they would agree with me! (lack of salvation)
Generally speaking, I do not default to these possibilities. Don’t get me wrong, these really are all possibilities. It could be that people deny the truth (assuming that my position is such) due to ignorance, lack of perspective or wisdom, traditional bindings, sin, lack of authority, or a presupposition of godlessness or naturalism. But I think we need to be careful about any negative prejudgments about people’s motives and the ultimate reasons for disagreements.
We normally don’t know.
Here are the considerations that I would aspire to make before I draw upon the former possibilities.
Others don’t agree with me because they are right and I am wrong.
Granted, I am convicted I am right. If this were not the case I would simply change my position. But the possibility always exists that I am the one who is in error, being misinformed, motivated by false pre-understandings, traditionally bound, or lacking perspective. I must consider this with great humility, as hard as it is to do.
There are some things that I am more sure of than others. For example, I am far less likely to be wrong about the existence of God than I am about my belief in a pre-tribulational rapture of the church. As well, I am humbled by the fact that there are many things that I used to believe that I no longer believe. I held to these former beliefs with (what seems to be) just as much conviction as many of the beliefs that I hold to now. What do I do with that? In most of those cases, the evidence, or lack there-of, militated against my previous doctrinal commitments forces me to make hard adjustments. Very hard adjustments. For example, I used to believe that if someone did not accept the doctrine of inerrancy, they were not Christian. This was due to my fundamentalist presuppositions no doubt, but when faced with the evidence that there are many people out there who do not hold to inerrancy, yet loved and trusted the same Christ as me, my position had to either change or slumber in the bedroom of naivety. I still have those decisions to make. It is called learning.
What I must realize is this: there is not one belief that I hold to which is protected by infallibility. Infallibility is the other side of the coin of absolute certainty. Absolute certainty can only be held by those who have all the information and are interpreting it correctly. To be infallible means that you cannot fail. Since I am not infallible, by definition, I can fail. All of my beliefs are subject to my attribute of fallibility. There is no one who possesses infallibility. Even Roman Catholics who try to alleviate themselves of this reality by trusting in the dictates of an infallible magisterial authority such as the Pope inevitably face the same problem since their own trust in the infallible authority of the Pope is fallible. The same holds true for Evangelicals and our infallible Bible. Our belief in the Bible is fallible, even if the Bible itself is not. No one can escape their own fallibility. Therefore we all could be wrong. We are left to rely on a process of examining and weighting the evidence and following it wherever it leads. This will often cause us to change our beliefs.
Therefore, serious consideration must always be made of the proposition that people don’t agree with me because I am the one who is wrong.
Others don’t agree with me because God does not want us to agree, irrespective of who is right.
This may sound odd, but we must consider it. I said earlier that I was a Calvinist. While this does not give me exclusive right to the doctrine of God’s sovereignty, it does require me to consider what part it might play in the question: Why doesn’t everyone agree with me? What I am really asking is this: Why isn’t everyone unified around the truth?
I believe that it is a real possibility—even likelihood—that God does not want absolute doctrinal unity right now. In fact, practically speaking, it could do more harm than good. I believe that doctrinal disagreements are often healthy for the church. When there is conflict between opposing options, the issue at hand is understood at a more profound level than is possible in the absence of the conflict. Conflict, in the end, can bring about a deeper conviction of the truth. When there is no conflict, there is no iron sharpening iron in the same way.
I am not in any sense trying to relativize the truth, but to help us to understand that wrong beliefs, even our own, could be serving the purpose of God and bringing Him more honor than we recognize. It is often said that heresy is God’s gift to the church. Why? Because when a false option is presented the truth becomes much clearer. In contrast there is clarity. In clarity there is conviction.
It is for this reason that we must be continually engaged with alternative options. As hard as it is to engage in beliefs that go against our present convictions, we need to recognize the value of the struggle. Herein lies what I believe to be one of the greatest strengths of the Protestant doctrine of sola Scriptura—it presents the opportunity to wrestle with the issues at a level that is not allowed for in magisterial based traditions.
What I am saying is this: it may actually be God’s sovereignty that brings about division over the doctrine of God’s sovereignty! This does not mean that wrong belief is always justified. Wrong belief is often, not always, the result of sin. Neither does it mean that we need to be content with agnosticism or lessen our conviction about any doctrinal issue. To the contrary. It means that we engage in it more vigorously than we did before, being confident that God has a dignifying reason for conflict resulting from diversity. In the end, we will find that through the conflict our beliefs become stronger, not weaker. I believe that we must open ourselves up to the possibility of being wrong in order to find a more true faith and conviction.
We have learned to celebrate diversity in every area of life. We celebrate the diversity of the sexes. Men: can you imagine a world where women did not contribute to a balanced perspective? That is horrifying. Women, can you imagine the opposite (don’t answer that!). Think of the diversity among personalities, nations, political parties, age groups, and cultures. While we may believe that our opinion is correct (and it may be), from a certain perspective we can appreciate the allowance for a dissension in values, beliefs, and practices. Understanding diversity can often cause us to see that the answer to many issues is going to be more of a both/and rather than an either/or. We could both be right and we could both be wrong.
In the end, if God is in control then the answer to my question is relatively simple. Why doesn’t everyone agree with me? Because it is not God’s will for them to. It is to His glory. Why? His will is better accomplished through diversity. In this I think we can learn to celebrate diversity without yielding to the postmodern matrix of relativism, uncertainty or apathy.
Similar Posts:
- In Defense of Sola Scriptura – Part Eight(b) – What about all the divisions?
- In Defense of Sola Scriptura – Part Eight – What about all the divisions?
- All the Right Beliefs for all the Wrong Reasons
- Why Do I (A Calvinist) Go to An Arminian Church?
- Is Today’s Evangelicalism Retro-Fundementalism
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52 Comments
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Thanks for your article.
One thing I have in question is: what do you mean by ‘diversity of sexes’? Are you referring to so-called sexual life styles?
Another point is that ‘diversity’ in the politically charged corruption of language in our enlightened and degraded culture is often synonymous with ‘being tolerant’, that is, tolerant of what is wrong rather than what is right.
You see, when Adam and Eve ate the fruit from the tree, it was about they want and they can decide what is right and what is wrong. When anyone can decide what is right (right is ‘what feels good to me’), we are forced to be tolerant, that is accept the falsehood, the very thing Satan plays in human affairs. It was not about to tell what is ‘good’ and ‘evil’.
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I don’t have to be infallible because I know for certain the God who does not fail. If our base is certain, than the only thing we need to be sure of is that we are standing on it.
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Well I mean we all are different parts of the body right? Different functions etc.. does your wife agree with you about everything? She’s still a part of you , as are other people in your church fellowship.
If Gordon Fee were pastoring a church in my area I would likely be in it.
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Does it also help when the wrong interpretation rules for a period of time (e.g., the dark ages)? Where do we draw the line between diversity and frank, dangerous mutilation of the gospel? Or do we?
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CMP,
I find your humility refreshing. I am used to Christians being dogmatic about every last one of their beliefs.
May I add another possibility to your list of reasons for disagreement? The Bible disagrees with itself. Unless you begin with the presupposition that the Bible is divinely inspired, then you have to be willing to consider this possibility. If the Bible, is the work of men who are writing down their notions about God and the world, then one would expect there to be disagreement. One reason why the disagreement is not as pronounced as it could be is because the way the canon was selected. One of the criteria was to eliminate those writings that were in obvious and direct contradiction (note Luther was dubious about James for this reason).
One of the reasons I de-converted is because I came to the conclusion that if the Bible were truly inspired by God, it would be much clearer than it is and much less subject to various contradictory interpretations. Conservative Christians cannot even agree on the precise requirement for salvation. is it faith alone or faith plus baptism or faith involving surrender, etc.
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It’s faith alone.
One of the ways God gives faith is in Baptism.
The Bible. That’s where the truth is.
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CMP,
I can agree with your first point completely. However, I don’t think I agree with your second point at all.
Ephesians 4:11-16 says: “And He gave some as apostles, and some as prophets, and some as evangelists, and some as pastors and teachers, for the equipping of the saints for the work of service, to the building up of the body of Christ; until we all attain to the unity of the faith, and of the knowledge of the Son of God, to a mature man, to the measure of the stature which belongs to the fullness of Christ. As a result, we are no longer to be children, tossed here and there by waves and carried about by every wind of doctrine, by the trickery of men, by craftiness in deceitful scheming; but speaking the truth in love, we are to grow up in all aspects into Him who is the head, even Christ, from whom the whole body, being fitted and held together by what every joint supplies, according to the proper working of each individual part, causes the growth of the body for the building up of itself in love.”
It seems to me that these verses and others that speak of the importance of right doctrine show us that God places a premium on correct doctrine and in the Ephesians verses, “the unity of the faith” and not being tossed around by various doctrines.
Does God will incorrect doctrine and diversity of doctrine when that seems to be opposite to His goal and will for us? I’m sorry, but I don’t think I can accept that idea.
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Cheryl:
The BIble says that one day the whole earth is supposed to be “deceived” by an evil magician and/or a “false” or “anti-Christ”; deceived it seems in its very religion, its very idea of Christ.
So that great unity can be achieved … in falsehood.
Therefore, there is a certain unity we are to resist it seems.
But you’ll never hear this redeeming word …because you turned it off.
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Cheryl, just shooting from the hip here, but as a teacher I sometimes permit or even introduce divergent viewpoints because it stimulates genuine thought and discussion. It depends on the goal – do we want lock-step uniformity or do we want people to arrive at a position through study and understanding? IOW, digging through different viewpoints can produce or stengthen discernment and also results in a higher level of personal conviction on a given issue.
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I have often thought that even in the Church, God still confuses the languages or we just don’t know what we would capable of inflicting on the world.
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Is it the postmodernist who is narcissistic? Or is it the self-proclaimed Man of God? Who presumes to speak every day, for God?
Yourself, as the Voice of God?
What could possibly be more vain, more narcissistic, than that?
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Dave Z.
I appreciate what you are saying. It doesn’t seem to me that is the way things were done or taught in the New Testament though when it came to spiritual matters. Look at these examples of Paul’s instructions to others:
“But as for you, speak the things which are fitting for sound doctrine.” Titus 2:1
“in all things show yourself to be an example of good deeds, with purity in doctrine, dignified,” Titus 2:7
“In pointing out these things to the brethren, you will be a good servant of Christ Jesus, constantly nourished on the words of the faith and of the sound doctrine which you have been following.” I Timothy 4:6
It seems to me they were always straight forward in what they taught and it was expected to be accepted and believed that way. I see no hint of God’s using diversity in doctrine for His glory or for learning experience. Has his method of working with people changed I wonder?
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Is is lonely being a secularist?
When I was a kid, I tested in some tests, in the 106 and 109th percentile in some subjects. Was it lonely? Yes. Do I really want to join everyone else? Well, yes. But mostly, NO.
Want to tell me how good it is to run in the herd?
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I did think of one exception to what I said in my last comment. That is in the book of Acts when the question arose regarding if the Gentiles needed to follow the Jewish laws and the leaders had to come together and determine the answer to that question.
I don’t know if that means that God willed for that lack of understanding to take place though. And it seems to me that was a little bit different situation then we have now. They were at that time new to all of this and just learning all of what God had for them. We have now been given God’s instructions for us in the Bible. And it seems to me things weren’t treated as learning from diversity from that time on. (Note the Scripture verses I gave above.)
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CMP,
Really I think that something here must be said about the transcendence of God. Without realizing this Ken’s point makes sense, but we need to realize that if God is transcendent then, sometimes, honest and thought out answers will disagree. The transcendence of God is what makes him incredibly wonderful, but it also at times makes God obscure. It is what makes God capable of breaking out of little boxes that theology wants to confine Him within, which is good. God is not ours to manipulate, so theological systems have thin places, if not holes. This is part ofthe reason why two actual Christians can come to a few different conclusion. This is not disagreement on major issues, but on the minor issues.
All this says that just because we do not agree does not necessarily mean that God does not want us to disagree, but rather it points to how great God really is.
Rick
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CMP,
I’ve been pondering this topic for sometime. I’m glad you addressed it again. I know you’ve broached it in other posts, but this angle seems to make more sense to me.
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Another enjoyable post. I agree with you that in the belief that God’s will is better accomplished though diversity.
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“For example, I am far less likely to be wrong about the existence of God than I am about my belief in a pre-tribulational rapture of the church.”
No, CMP, in one you would be completely right, and in the other you would be completely wrong!!!
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Ken #4,
If you find frustration and confusion at the multitude of biblical interpretations, you are not alone. However, I implore you, even though we may find uncertainty when approaching the written word, don’t let that deter you from embracing the living Word–Jesus Christ. He is a person who loves and is to be loved, not a textbook to be analyzed.
If God were to be compared to a great body of water, I think sometimes we approach him like this: we casually meander down the beach slowly toward the water, stoop down and get a sample in a jar, take it back to our lab for examination by both ourselves and our favorite scientists (exegetes) then write a report on our findings. Sometimes, we just need to run down the beach and plunge headlong into the flood, slaking every thirst of body and soul.
Regarding doctrinal unity, it’s not as if every question must be answered and agreed upon, but is schism even a sin in Protestantism? It sure is in scripture. Dissentions, contentions, and heresies are damnable in Gal. 5.
Jesus promised to lead his church into all truth and prayed we all would be one (only invisibly?). Where does that leave us Prots when we just start a new church everytime we disagree. We all hold up the scriptures as our only authority, but the problem is that we don’t have any real authority as a principle of unity other than ourselves. In Rome and Orthodoxy, they don’t demand or expect complete agreement on all points of theology, yet sometimes authority is abused and unGodly. The work of the Spirit in the life of the Church (Tradition) is a fabulous idea in principle, but is messy in reality. 1Cor 11:20 says that there must be heresies or factions among us–not for us to celebrate and consider as normal and tolerable, but rather to make manifest those who are approved or to manifest the truth.
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Canadian,
Do you really think that Paul in I Cor 11:20 is really saying that there must be hereisies or factions, or is he making a sarcastic comment? Right at the start of this book, he upbraids this church for having factions and in the couple of verses right before this one he makes it clear that the way they behave when they come together is not a good thing. So I have taken this verse to be a sarcastic comment made by Paul. He did seem to throw those out once in a while!
And in II Corinthians 13:11 he commands the same church to be of one mind or be like minded. How could he command them to be like minded if it is necessary for them to have factions or heresies amongst them? That really sounds contradictory to me.
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The only question worth asking and answering is, “Does your belief aide in Gods regeneration of your life?” That is all any of us needs to know. does it make this earth life more tolerable, rewarding and useful to God and His plan for us to glorify Him? Or do you just like to know a bunch of stuff and believe a bunch of stuff to argue, make a blog and be a pain. Does all your knowledge make your experience with God more real, meaningful and accessable to share with others?
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Could it be the reason we disagree is we are still sinners. Will we ever know all the answers to all the questions before we stand before God. But part of our problem is we have the conceit to believe we have all the answers even on all the little details. I am convinced there are basic doctrines that we must stand for (Galatians 1:8,9; 2 Corinthians 11:4; 1 John 4:2). But might we be better to be less dogmatic and more loving on things that are less clear-cut. The solution is the realize our own imperfections and to not expect to have all the answers.
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How come no one has quoted Steve Brown yet?
“I know I’m wrong about some things, I just don’t know which things.”
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cherylu,
My post was rushed and maybe a bit confusing. I think I am mainly in agreement with you. I am saying that heresy and division is sinful and damnable according to scripture. What do we do with that as Protestants? (Yes I know, the Reformation was a division from a church that was already divided.)
It isn’t just the scripture that declares heresy, the church does it by the leading of the Spirit. (As evidenced in Acts 15 and the ecumenical Councils). Paul is not saying heresy is good as if we should celebrate doctrinal and ecclesial division, he seems to be saying that the church’s doctrinal boundaries and authority are necessarily revealed when heresy and division arises. But schism is never a scriptural option. Can heresy even defined without unity? Does Uncle John’s Baptist Church have any real authority? Where did they come from anyway? Who is authoritative when Free-To-Be-Me-Fellowship and Sister-Sue’s-Awesome-Assembly came from a split over the nature of salvation, or whether Christ had two wills, or whether baptism and the Lord’s supper are optional, or whether women should be ministers, or whatever? So, I guess I believe in order to have real authority, unity is crucial. Not unity in every detail as even Rome and Orthodoxy don’t require that. But the church should be one, holy, catholic, and apostolic shouldn’t she? Diversity is a wonderful thing when it can be contained in undivided unity. Aside from the small division after Chalcedon, the church was virtually unified for nearly a thousand years. Why not again?
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Canadian,
Thanks for your explanation. I understand much better what you are saying now.
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CMP,
In the just published book The Christian Delusion, John Loftus has a chapter entitled: “What We Have Here is a Failure to Communicate.” In the chapter he cites you and your belief that God wants Christians to disagree. He says: Patton adequately expresses what Christians have been forced into accepting by the violent conflicts of the past. But his view is a hindsight conclusion learned from this conflict. The believers who were killing each other in the name of Jesus [as in the 30 Years War] did not share this conclusion. That’s why they killed one another. The thought never occurs to Patton that if this is the lesson God wanted Christians to learn he could’ve just said so. He could’ve said that the only thing important to him is that Christians agree on several essential matters of faith and then specifically named them and articulated them. Then God could’ve said the rest is nonessential, a matter for opinion and speculation, that other things don’t matter much to him or to their salvation. Instead we have the Apostle Paul saying this: “I appeal to you, brothers, in the name of our Lord Jesus Christ, that all of you agree with one another so that there may be no divisions among you and that you may be perfectly united in mind and thought” (1 Cor. 1:10).
Today, Christians don’t kill each other over various interpretations of Scripture but they did in the past. Theologians in the south before the Civil War argued strongly that slavery was scriptural.
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Theologians in the south before the Civil War argued strongly that slavery was scriptural.
And it is. The Scriptures clearly speak of the relationships masters are to have with their slaves, and vice-versa, in both the Old and New Testaments. Slavery is definitely “scriptural” if by “scriptural” you mean that the Scriptures teach the proper and improper treatment of slaves and recognize slavery as a valid fact and acceptable behavior of human existence, even for and among the people of God, whether Israelites under the Old Covenant or believers/Christians under the New Covenant.
But if by “scriptural” you mean that the Scriptures command and teach that people are to take and keep other people as slaves, then that might be a subject for debate or argumentation.
And judging by the history of humankind and various societies, slavery is “natural.” It’s a natural consequence of and reason for war – i.e., to acquire labor for one’s empire as well as what to do with what and whom one acquires as a result of empire-building and/or defending one’s country. It is probably a rather “modern” idea that there is no place for slavery or even indentured servitude among “civilized” people.
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Michael Patton:
What does this mean for the concept of ‘absolute truth’?
If two people disagree on an idea, let’s say, the deity of Christ…then one of them is wrong (by default), or perhaps they are both wrong…. regardless, there is only One Absolute Truth.
We may not be right as you correctly state. When I debate a friend of mine who holds a rather liberal theology, I make it a point not to argue from my experience or my ego…it’s not about ‘me’ being ‘right’, it’s about getting to the truth.
I certainly can see where debating a heresy can show you the truth. But I think that stems from the fact that when you are salt and light in a dark world, the darker the world gets, the brighter your light shines and the greater the need for a preservative against the rot of untruth.
Again, it’s not about ‘me’ being right, it’s about God being right and pursuing the truth He provides. If we are all sincere in our endeavors to seek truth, we ‘should’ all be on the same path and there ‘should’ be agreement to some degree at least in the essentials of the Christian faith….
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Damon said “Again, it’s not about ‘me’ being right, it’s about God being right and pursuing the truth He provides. If we are all sincere in our endeavors to seek truth, we ’should’ all be on the same path and there ’should’ be agreement to some degree at least in the essentials of the Christian faith….”
Your’e right, we “should”. However, sincerity has not provided unity and does not guarantee truth, so we excuse division as normal rather than as schism. Also, who determines what is “essential”? Me?….You?…..Pastor Archibald? I certainly don’t trust myself.
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Although most of us pride ourselves on being objective when examining the Scriptures and weighing interpretations, I think our personalities and emotional needs play a big role in deciding which doctrines we end up concluding to be true. Someone once said: “Believe what you will; you will anyway.”
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Although most of us pride ourselves in being objective when examining the Scriptures and weighing interpretations, I think our personalities and emotional needs play a big role in deciding which doctrines we end up concluding to be true. Someone once said: “Believe what you will; you will anyway.”
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Again, it’s not about ‘me’ being right, it’s about God being right and pursuing the truth He provides. If we are all sincere in our endeavors to seek truth, we ’should’ all be on the same path and there ’should’ be agreement to some degree at least in the essentials of the Christian faith….
One of the usually-agreed-on “essentials of the Christian faith” is belief in the Trinity per the Niceno-Constantinopolitan Creed, the Chalcedon Statement, and the so-called Athanasian Creed.
I would suggest, though, that a commitment to Sola Scriptura would not necessarily result in determining or concluding that the Scriptures clearly teach what those Creeds and Statements say and confess about the nature of the Godhead. E.g., I think the full Personhood of the Holy Spirit and the homoousios-ness of the Son with the Father would still be subject to debate and differing conclusions among people who are all sincere in their endeavors to seek truth.
Or maybe belief in the Trinity, or specific beliefs about the Trinity, are not essentials of the Christian faith. What do you think? And why? And how?
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Please understand that I know that there is a lot of conversation that is apologetic in nature going on on the blog. However, this does not mean that each post can turn into such. Many of the posts assume the Christian worldview, some challenge it. But not all. This one is not a debate about the truthfulness of Christianity. It is assumed for the sake of the argument of the post. Thanks.
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If schism is a sin, then either all of Catholicism or all of Protestantism is sinful; since they are in schism with each other
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Though at times it seemed the Bible was not allowing differences, other times it acknowledged there would be “different branches” in Christianity
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Eric #29 said:
“I would suggest, though, that a commitment to Sola Scriptura would not necessarily result in determining or concluding that the Scriptures clearly teach what those Creeds and Statements say and confess about the nature of the Godhead”
This is what I was getting at in my comments. The scripture does not “CLEARLY TEACH” the Conciliar formulations regarding the Trinity and Christology! Yet the father’s prove by incessant appeal to scripture that the bible does support and affirm them, while all the scriptural refutations that the heretics brought forth were inadequate based on what the Holy Spirit had taught the church about Christ and the triune God. The father’s and the heretics did not see whose stack of proof texts was higher and declare a winner, rather the church compared everything to what had been taught and confessed from the beginning.
Is everything up for grabs in every generation? Is the canon set or can it be changed again and again? Is any creed or doctrine up for revision if we find some new exegesis we agree with based on sola scriptura? Here’s the bottom line, did the church speak authoritatively about the Trinity, Incarnation, or the scriptural canon? (The Council documents make it very evident that they believed they spoke with divine authority). Did the Spirit lead the church into all truth? Remember, the ancient church did not attempt to discover what to believe and how to act just from the text of scripture, they desired to protect and preserve what had been handed to them from the apostles and their successors. This, they were careful to show, would always agree with scripture. There were no New Testament documents for nearly a whole generation after the resurrection, yet the creedal, liturgical, sacramental, and teaching nature of her existence were in full operation.
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1. Is everything up for grabs in every generation? 2. Is the canon set or can it be changed again and again? 3. Is any creed or doctrine up for revision if we find some new exegesis we agree with based on sola scriptura? Here’s the bottom line, 4. did the church speak authoritatively about the Trinity, Incarnation, or the scriptural canon? (The Council documents make it very evident that they believed they spoke with divine authority). 5. Did the Spirit lead the church into all truth? Remember, the ancient church did not attempt to discover what to believe and how to act just from the text of scripture, they desired to 6. protect and preserve what had been handed to them from the apostles and their successors. 7. This, they were careful to show, would always agree with scripture. There were no New Testament documents for nearly a whole generation after the resurrection, yet 8. the creedal, liturgical, sacramental, and teaching nature of her existence were in full operation.
1. Possibly.
2. Possibly, but unlikely.
3. Not necessarily “any” but possibly some.
4. Depends on where and with whom one invests “authority.” And re: the canon, I don’t think it did speak authoritatively as in an official decree, at least not until Trent, IIRC.
5. I would say “no” and “not yet,” especially with respect to the “all” part.
6. So they say.
7. Yet they could and sometimes did disagree with each other re: what the same Scripture(s) said and meant.
8. Not “in full operation.” There was still continued development and addition and change and accretion and deletion, as well as variant practices among the different sects/groups. As time went on, these supplanted (and suppressed?) the earlier prophetic and charismatic elements.
YMMV
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Eric,
I find it refreshingly honest that you admit that the Bible condones slavery. It doesn’t command it but it does, as you acknowledge, condone and regulate it.
I find this morally appalling as do most civilized peoples today. It seems inherently wrong for one human being to own another human being, yet the Bible condones it. It was the more liberal Christians in the 19th century who opposed slavery not the conservative ones.
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Ken Pulliam wrote: … It was the more liberal Christians in the 19th century who opposed slavery not the conservative ones.
Have you read about Granville Sharp? (Okay, he was largely 18th century.) Here’s Dr. Dan Wallace’s essay about this abolitionist – surely no “liberal”:
http://bible.org/article/granville-sharp-model-evangelical-scholarship-and-social-activism
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Eric,
Not all abolitionists were liberal Christians, I don’t mean to imply that. What I meant to point out is that many conservative Christians defended slavery. You had conservative Christians on both sides of a debate that ultimately led to over 600,000 deaths in the Civil War. Wouldn’t you think an omniscient God would have been able to communicate his will about slavery a little more clearly? He could have added an eleventh commandment: Thou shalt in under no circumstances own another human being as your property. If he is omniscient, he knew that his lack of specificity on the issue was going to lead to enormous suffering on the part of slaves as well as all those deaths in the Civil War. Did he just not care?
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Ken:
Is slavery an absolute evil? Is it a simple black-and-white issue where there is only one possible answer to the question of slavery? E.g., are there possibly not some prisoners of war or executed enemy combatants who, if given the choice (but a choice that “civilized” nations are no longer allowed to offer) would have preferred to be enslaved by the victors, theiir captors, than to be dead or spend the rest of their lives in prison? Is, e.g., the OT slavery code in some ways more humane than either their contemporaries’ treatment of slaves or, per the above, the way nations now treat some of their wartime enemies?
Just askin’ ’cause I can.
As for your question about what God could or couldn’t or did or didn’t do, remember…there is no God.
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Eric,
I would say that slavery, i.e., owning another human being as property, is just about as close to an absolute evil as one can get. Yes there might be a weird exception here or there just as there is with abortion but its a tiny, even minute percentage.
If the Bible is true, then human beings are created in the image of God and worthy of respect not treatment as property.
As for your last comment, I am assuming for a moment that there is a God and that he inspired the Bible. If he did, then why in the world didn’t he state clearly that owning slaves was wrong? It would have saved a lot of lifes and a lot of suffering. So I have to wonder, if he exists, does he just simply not care?
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[...] Dieser Artikel von C. Michael Patton erscheint mir wichtig genug, dass ich ihn übersetzt habe und hier dem österreichischen Publikum zugänglich mache. Der Autor ist Absolvent des Dallas Theological Seminary und leitet das christliche Bildungswerk Reclaiming the Mind und das theologische Fernstudienprogramm The Theology Program. Der Artikel wurde im Blog des Autors veröffentlicht. [...]
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[...] a recent post on the Parchment and Pen blog entitled “Why doesn’t everyone agree with me?”, C. Michael Patton applies this same principle not to the question of which church most resembles [...]
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Ken,
I think the ultimate question with regards to slavery and innumerable other issues is does God ever accommodate to human sinfulness (assuming there is a God of course)? I think that if the God of the Bible is the true God the answer is yes. Just compare the OT divorce laws to those in the NT. The Law permitted divorce because of “the hardness of your [the Israelites] hearts”. God as depicted in the Bible it appears is willing to control and use human sinfulness despite the fact that it is not what He truly desires. Thus rather than outlaw slavery (which was practiced by literally everyone in Biblical times) God sets rules and boundaries for slavery just as he did divorce. Yet I think despite this there is a forceful argument that the design and intent of things was not for there to be slavery and slavery was and is a reflection of the fall not design. As you yourself point out the very thought of someone being owned who is created in the image of God is despicable in modern society. How could the ancients have missed this?? Perhaps because there were as blinded to the immorality of slavery as they were to divorce.
Ultimately I find the arguments for the Bible “supporting” slavery to be weak in light of the overall themes of the Bible. I would consider the regulation of slavery to be a accommodation of God to the immorality of the culture in which he was working, not part of his original design.
Of course this assumes there is a God, if there isn’t talking about slavery as being an objective, absolute moral evil is absurd.
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Michael T.,
If your God is perfectly holy, how can he accommodate sin? How can he condone it? It would seem that he could not.
As far as absolute morality which Christians claim to have–its refuted by this very example. Either slavery is wrong or its not. Either divorce is wong or its not. You are saying that given the society of the OT times, etc. it was not good but it was allowable. I take it you would say that today its not allowable, given our modern conditions. How is that not relativistic ethics?
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Ken,
Couple issues,
1. There is a difference between situational and relativistic ethics
2. There is a difference between condoning and using.
3. I’m not saying divorce was ever right or that slavery was ever right. I believe they have been for all of history 100% wrong in God’s eyes. However, God realizing that humans in their immorality were going to enslave one another and realizing that men were going to discard their wives, instituted rules to mitigate these evils as best as possible.
4. We are likely to talk past each other here unless I make it clear that I reject Calvinism (I know you come from a Calivistic background). I believe that God sometimes is forced to use means He abhors in order to accomplish His plans due to humanity using free will for evil.
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Hey guys, please stick to the subject of the post and remember that this is not a forum.
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[...] “I believe that it is a real possibility—even likelihood—that God does not want absolute doctrinal unity right now“ [...]
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I think it would be helpful to have clarification on whether you are referring to disagreements b/t Christians and those who are unregenerate or just in-house disagreements b/t Christians. For the unbeliever Paul is pretty clear what the ultimate issue is. It is a form of self-deception. For what can be known about God is plain to them because GOD has made it plain to them . . . So when it comes to the foundational issue of the nature of reality, that there is a distinction between the creature and the Creator, people deceive themselves into thinking that they are autonomous and therefore not accountable to their Creator. The autonomous man assumes the world is made up of uninterpreted facts that are brought together and interpreted by his own mind rather than pre-interpreted and unified by their Creator. The so-called autonomous man always ends up referring to himself as the ultimate standard of truth and the consistent Christian always, after all is said and done, refers to the Triune God of scripture. Trying to interpret God’s world without reference to Him as the ultimate authority and interpreter of the facts will be a futile/self-defeating effort that leaves one with place to stand ending in a rationalism that degenerates into irrationalism (since man can’t know everything). Our certainty rests not on our own autonomous ability to know, but on the personal Triune God who reveals Himself to us in nature, ourselves, and scripture.
I think the idea that people “follow the evidence where it leads” is problematic. It takes no account the noetic effects of sin and the natural man’s predisposition against God or the cultural contexts and motivations that influence beliefs. Perhaps a consistent Calvinistic interpretation would be helpful here as well as offering an account of doctrinal diversity. What we need is for our wills to continually be conformed to and aligned with the will of the one who does know.
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