This is a fantasic book. It is well written and actually funny. I found it a compelling read.
For me it raised a really interesting question. If we look at what some of our church forefathers thought, we would be tempted to think that they were teaching heresy. For instance it was common for people (as in top theologians) to think that Jesus was created by God. Only later did the idea of begotten and the oneness of the Trinity develop.
We take the concept of the Father, Son and Holy Spirit as being one and equal (but different in the way they relate to humanity) as being just commonly accepted doctrine and what anyone reading the Bible would come up with.
Well put simply... THIS IS NOT THE CASE.
Whether we like it or not, we base a lot of what we view as core doctrine on the work of our church forefathers. In fact the Bible itself (our translations) are quite impacted by work of these theologians. Particularly the choice of what words are chosen to represent the original Greek and Hebrew words when the translation is done.
Anyway... this raises some interesting questions about what we defend as core issues of Christian faith. In some ways this prompts us towards a reductionist view of these core issues. But that may be a bit of a copout and maybe we should dive into the complexity but bear in mind that we may be off track.
4 comments:
Interesting! So do you think it raises issues about the infallability of the word then? Im not sure what to think about that, however the theological norm I have inhrited tells me that scripture is infalliable :). I do think it is ok to rely on the Holy Spirit to give you understanding, and to trust His power though.
However I find it hard to get around something that is very related if not the same.. We take so much of our societal norms into our christian faith.. and this can be streched to our christian norms that we inherit from our forefathers and christian community.
I find it hard to jusitfy this, some things seem to be ok, even if they seem to be very unbiblical. This is done just becuase they are accepted as what people do, or viewed as a persons perogative, or even their right. It can cover all kinds of things, from attitudes towards each other, pride and vanity, greed, selfishness.. etc etc.
I think often they are accpeted because you cannot ever completely rebuke them, and most come down to some kind of christian liberty.. The problem is alot of things that can be done in a loving, non sinful way, can also be done in a very sinful way and often its all down to the persons heart (motives).
Anyways I cant quite get my head around it all, and could talk in circles for a while.. sorry this is a little unrelated, but I thought it was along similar lines.
Hmmm... I don't think I am commenting on the infalliability of scripture. Scripture is correct. I am commenting on the falliability of humans to interpret and understand scripture. History shows us that we have got it stuffed up in the past. My question is about whether we can be certain that we haven't got it stuffed up at the moment!!!
Im sure we do have it wrong in some respects.. we always seem to. This does not worry me too much (still worries me, as it should I spose..) when its on more peripheral things (hmm what a cliche..). Perhaps on these something like 1 Corinthians 3:11-15.
However, when our foundation is being built on wrong interpretations and ideas then there seems to be a major problem. We know we should have Christ as our 'foundation' and as the central goal of our life.. but what does that look like and mean?
I still think in all this though God's sovereignty and the power of the Holy Spirit should not be downplayed. (however not so overdone that we become spiritially 'flabby' and begin to excuse sin.)
It is interesting that you mention both "God's Sovereignty" and the role of the Holy Spirit. Both of these 'concepts' that we have a constructs that have been batted back and forwards over the centuries. What we currently believe as orthodox has not always been that way.
It is important that we don't reject orthodox views on these things. It is also important that we are open to the idea that maybe some of it isn't correct. But it better be a very good argument that will convince us to change our orthodoxy.
Post a Comment