Undeception

It would be indeed meet for us not at all to require the aid of the written word, but to exhibit a life so pure, that the grace of the Spirit should be instead of books to our souls, and that as these are inscribed with ink, even so should our hearts be with the Spirit. But, since we have utterly put away from us this grace, come, let us at any rate embrace the second best course.

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For that the former was better, God hath made manifest, both by His words and by His doings, since unto Noah, and unto Abraham, and unto his offspring, and unto Job, and unto Moses too, He discoursed not by writings, but Himself by Himself, finding their mind pure. But after the whole people of the Hebrews had fallen into the very pit of wickedness, then and thereafter was a written word, and tables, and the admonition which is given by these.

And this one may perceive was the case, not of the saints in the Old Testament only, but also of those in the New. For neither to the Apostles did God give anything in writing, but instead of written words He promised that He would give them the grace of the Spirit: for He, saith our Lord, shall bring all things to your remembrance (John 14:26). And that thou mayest learn that this was far better, hear what He saith by the Prophet: I will make a new covenant with you, putting my laws into their mind, and in their heart I will write them, and, they shall be all taught of God [cf. Jer. 31.33 LXX; John 6.45]. And Paul too, pointing out the same superiority, said that they had received a law not in tables of stone, but in fleshy tables of the heart [II Cor. 3:3].

This is certainly in contrast to those who hold the creation of the canon to be the greatest gift God ever gave to the church, second only to Jesus (or so they say).

Chrysostom certainly held Scripture to be divine in origin; in fact the above remarks were brought forth to emphasize that it would only compound our foolishness if, having been so hard-hearted as to require the holy writings as a ”second remedy,” we ignore even those. But notice the logic here: written Scripture is only necessary because we refuse to obey the voice of the Spirit in our hearts.

Because of our incorrigible tendency toward ignoring the law promised to be written on our hearts, it certainly helps to have Scripture and other sacred sources (like our theological traditions) for signposts. But those things, including the Bible, can never take the place of that Word of God that is spoken directly into our hearts — and they certainly can’t trump it. The caution is that if we take those often useful and even necessary crutches as the foundation on which we stand, we’ll find ourselves hugging the floor soon enough.

Amidst the current controversy, some are pointing out that, despite being maligned as though they were novel signs of our wayward times, current trends of Christians questioning the negative attributes of God sometimes presented in Scripture, attitudes like jealousy and vengeance that we find intolerable in other humans, are hardly novel in church history. To underscore this, here’s a voice that most influential believers throughout church history have apparently tried to ignore:

That we should imagine that anger, wrath, jealousy or such like have anything to do with the divine Nature is something utterly abhorrent for us: no one in their right mind, no one who has any understanding (at all) can possibly come to such madness as to think anything of the sort about God. Nor again can we possibly say that He acts thus out of retribution, even though the Scriptures may on the outer surface posit this. Even to think this of God and to suppose that retribution for evil acts is to be found with Him is abominable. [p. 162-163]

It is not (the way of) the compassionate Maker to create rational beings in order to deliver them over mercilessly to unending affliction (in punishment) for things of which He knew even before they were fashioned, (aware) how they would turn out when He created them – and whom (nonetheless) He created. [p. 165]

Just because (the terms) wrath, anger, hatred, and the rest are used of the Creator, we should not imagine that He (actually) does anything in anger or hatred or zeal. Many figurative terms are employed in the Scriptures of God, terms which are far removed from His (true) nature. And just as (our) rational nature has (already) become gradually more illuminated and wise in a holy understanding of the mysteries which are hidden in (Scripture’s) discourse about God – that we should not understand everything (literally) as it is written, but rather that we should see, (concealed) inside the bodily exterior of the narratives, the hidden providence and eternal knowledge which guides all – so too we shall in the future come to know and be aware of many things for which our present understanding will be seen as contrary to what it will be then; and the whole ordering of things yonder will undo any precise opinion we possess now in (our) supposition about Truth. For there are many, indeed endless, things which do not even enter our minds here, not even as promises of any kind. [p. 171]

[from Isaac of Nineveh (Isaac the Syrian). ‘The Second Part’, Chapters IV-XLI . Translated by S. Brock]

St. Isaac the Syrian (image via Wikipedia)

That last quote sounds almost apophatic, doesn’t it? For more discussion of these and other related thoughts by Isaac the Syrian, the seventh century ascetic and Orthodox saint, see this good discussion, whence the above quotes.

It is surely significant that although very little of the first-hand writings of heretics and dissidents from early church history (such as Marcion or Arius) were permitted to be transmitted to us, Isaac’s and the still earlier voices of Origen and (Saint!) Gregory of Nyssa were never silenced. In other words, the Church never said “Farewell” to these men. By all means, let’s “reform” — back to a time when belief in an eternal hell wasn’t a litmus test for the right hand of Christian fellowship!

And now, like it or not, these ancient voices are being joined in one way or another by more voices every year.

He begins with a starkly stated proposition: 

The factual contradictions within Scripture or between Scripture and extrabiblical sources cited in my previous blog are not, in my view, the most serious difficulties that Christians face in the Bible. More troublesome are those cases where a biblical text espouses ethical values that not only contradict other biblical texts but strike us as down-right sinister or evil. 

He then goes on to highlight the clear incongruence between Mat 5.43-45 and Deu 20.16-18. 

Says Sparks, “These words from the lips of Jesus and the Law of Moses are profoundly different. How can one biblical text admonish us to love our enemies and another command Israel to commit genocide against ethnic groups because they have a different religion?” 

I am quite familiar with most of the involved justifications for the ritual act of consecration-by-destruction, or “ban” as it used to be called, known as ḥerem. In my undergraduate Apologetics class (or was it Deuteronomy?) I devoted a paper to arguing how truly ethical and even merciful it was for God to want those men, women, children, and babies murdered. 

Sparks notes that many apologists, such as myself in that paper long ago, have argued that the shock we feel when reading about the ḥerem is merely a clash between modern ethics and older sensibilities. However, it’s important to note that the clash with the ethics of the Hexateuch begins not with us in (post-)modernity but occurred with the very onset of Christianity. It is clearly Jesus’ ethic that clashes with ethics that justify ḥerem. Sparks reminds us that even the early church struggled to justify the ritual slaughter of human beings; he specifically notes Gregory of Nyssa, but I’d also like to point out that the kernel of Marcionism was popped in the heat of that friction long before.

Sparks points out how important it is for evangelicalism to admit and come to grips with these tensions: 

Even if conservative Evangelicals can create eccentric scenarios that seem to preserve the doctrine of Biblicistic inerrancy, the straightforward evidence against this doctrine is so palpable that the doctrine should never be granted any kind of fundamental status in the Christian faith.

I hope you read the whole post.

Polycarp at The Church of Jesus Christ and I seem to be travelling the same paths lately (does this indicate that I’m finally a part of the Church of Jesus Christ? The U.S. branch, anyway?). He recently wrote a series of posts, some in depth and some quite short, regarding hell and universalism in Scripture and in the ECF, appropriately leaving the question open-ended.

Now he’s gone and dredged up another topic left conveniently buried by most modern Protestants who champion orthodoxy and good theology (so long as it comports with their already composed beliefs): baptism.

I was thinking yesterday during Sunday School that I should write a post on “unapproved” answers to Evangelism Explosion question number 2, in which God asks the recently departed who appear on His doorstep, “Why should I let you in to my heaven?”

The correct answer, according to EE and other Protestants everywhere, is something along the lines of, “I stand on Christ’s finished work.” I got to thinking that even saying “I believed the story in the Gospels” would ostensibly not quite cut it, because “even the demons believe, and tremble.” Rather, one must have faith that transforms, a conversion experience. And even that’s not quite enough: it is conceivable that one who believes with all his heart and experiences remorse for his guilt and acknowledges it before God who is nonetheless not one of the Elect would still be sent packing away from the Pearly Gates.

Yet all of the below are scriptural answers, sometimes given to people in the NT without the benefit of any of the above qualifiers (e.g. #2 below). And all of them would be considered somehow deficient by most of those who would endorse the Evangelism Explosion method of proselytization.

1. I repented and was baptized. (Acts 2.38, 3.19) (EE response: “GASP! ‘Baptism’ is a work — do you think you could by human effort contribute to your salvation?”)
2. My father believed and our whole household was baptized. (Acts 16.31) (EE response: “GASP! Doesn’t matter what your father did — did you believe?”)
3. I always thought that Jesus was God somehow, and even said so when asked. I mean, why else would God have raised him from the dead? (Romans 10.1) (EE response: “But did you ever bother to consult God on the matter? Did you even really mean it? Did the Holy Spirit come in and begin to work on you from the inside out?”)
4. Well, You oughta know, Lord – You’re the One who wrote down my name before the world began. (various Calvinist prooftexts) (EE response: “Even the Elect shouldn’t be so impudent!”)

Ok, the last one was somewhat facetious. But do you get my point? Most of the dogmatic “saved by faith alone” persuasion would be horrified with the first two answers at least. The third was an attempt to depict someone in a satured Christian culture (as in my own south-eastern U.S.) who hadn’t really thought about it that much before, but assumed it was true and yet never had a conscious conversion experience.

Now, I don’t want to put words in Multifish’s mouth (Lord knows he has enough in there already), but his posts on baptism certainly suggest (as I have stated before) that in this area, Protestants who look askance at baptismal regeneration are forced both to twist Scripture and ignore early Church tradition in order to do so.

Scripture is anything but perspicuous. And it’s not even particularly coherent: there is no natural way to tie together the answers given in the scriptural references of 1 through 4 above, but all of the answers I gave were in some sense undeniably “scriptural”, nonetheless. This is at the heart of my antipathy toward systematic theologies: they always leave out or skew some data from the historical witness of the early Christians. And as Manyvehiclep pointed out in this well researched post, “Paul was not speaking about written documents when he spoke of Tradition; he was speaking about teachings handed down,” and these teachings kept circulating alongside Paul’s writings and are present in the writings of the Early Church Fathers. Yet they uniformly taught that instead of simply being a symbol of life renewed or a covenant initiation rite, “baptism is dying out to sin,” the outward act necessary to turn to God, just as the confession with the mouth is the act by which Paul says we are saved (Rom 10.10). To these early believers, outward acts aren’t merely signs, but the acts by which things are actually accomplished.

I’m not personally arguing for baptismal regeneration. I’m merely putting on display more of the many necessary assumptions that go into our modern sanitized, preapproved Protestantism. In the end, the majority evangelical view may indeed be correct, but until we receive more, or more authoritative, revelation than what’s contained in Scripture and the ECF, we have no right to be arrogantly dismissive of other Christian traditions that disagree with us, even when it’s in the important area of soteriology. You are free to continue to assume that what you’ve always been taught is correct and that baptismal regeneration is incorrect, but you are constrained by Christian humility to acknowledge that it is an assumption and that other believers who don’t share that assumption can do so in good conscience.