How many here really accept the Athanasian Creed?

Protoevangel · #41 1st November 2009, 01:02 AM

Originally Posted by Basil the Great

Protoevangel:
I was referring to Gregory of Nyssa. Yes, there may be some dispute regarding his views, but there is at least considerable evidence to maintain that he doubted the reality of eternal punishment, if not actually refuted it.

Hi Basil,

From my readings of Saint Gregory, he does not seem to hold that the forgiveness of all is an inescapable necessity. He merely speculates on it's possibility. The reason Origen was anathematized was that it was certain in his view that all would be restored, eliminating the possibility of free will. This was not a mistake Saint Gregory repeated. Individual statements of his may go a bit too far, but considering the greater body of his work, he does not seem to suggest that every sinner "will be" restored, he leaves room for the view that just the redeemable ones, who require a purifying fire, may freely turn back to God.

But even so, there is room in the Church for incorrect opinions for those who are willing to be corrected. The Originist movement was what forced the hand of those who anathematized Origen, not the fact that he was wrong.

Basil the Great · #42 1st November 2009, 01:15 AM

Your analysis is probably quite correct, Protoevangel. I might add that it would be reckless for any Christian to insist that all will eventually be saved, as we simply have no evidence for such a claim.

JoeCatch · #43 1st November 2009, 01:55 AM

Originally Posted by Studeclunker

Jehovah's Whitnesses make the same claim. What's your point? That one can twist and bend scripture to say whatever they, do or even don't, want? This statement is the key difference that's causing the great gulf that separates the rest of the Lutheran churches from yours.

No, as a matter of fact that isn't my point. This accusation that a denial of inerrantism is equivalent to nothing more than picking and choosing is just a propaganda tactic. It's entirely unfounded and has absolutely nothing to do with serious engagement with the actual views of anyone in the ELCA with regard to why we actually do affirm our view of scripture and reject others. I'm not claiming that we in the ELCA always get it right, but simply asserting that all we're doing is twisting scripture to make it say whatever we want isn't really engaging with what's actually going on.

You are most certainly right. The doctrine of the inerrency of scripture came about because of the rise of the practice of 'Biblical Criticism.' This practice is what has produced most of the error that separates the ELCA from the rest of the American Lutheran community. That divide will continue to widen, if current events are any indication.

The doctrine of inerrantism arose in the 17th century and predates what we know today as modern "higher criticism." Certainly the scientific revolution that marked the outset of the modern era led to the development of higher criticism, but higher criticism hadn't really come onto the scene yet when the dogmaticians of Protestant/Lutheran Orthodoxy were writing.

Actually, the Lutheran Pietist movement can be directly traced to the teachings of Phillip Melangthon (sp??) starting shortly after Luther's death. Phillip had always been a Pietist and Luther was a moderating influence up till his death.

The rest of this statement is your opinion and you are entirely entitled to it. Historically, though, your foundation is weak.

I'm not sure what parts you're claiming are merely "[my] opinion." It's absolutely not merely my opinion that Protestant/Lutheran Orthodoxy, even in its own day, was by no means the only contender to being the true heir to the legacy of first-generation Reformers. I'm aware that the Pietists trace their heritage back to Melancthon; I simply cited them as an example of some contemporaries of the Protestant/Lutheran Orthodox dogmaticians, that the consensus of the first-gen Reformers unraveled quickly after their deaths and that the Orthodox theologians were not unrivaled as the sole, true heirs of the principles of the Reformation.

However, as long as the ELCA continues to make decisions that even NON-Lutherans denounce, there is not much hope for any kind of civil discorce.

Actually, you can make the choice anytime to engage or to be civil, even with those with whom you strongly disagree. If you want to be uncivil or refuse to engage with us, you need to take ownership of that choice as just that--your own choice--and not simply foist the responsibility off onto us (or anyone else) for your decisions and actions with regard to whether or not to exercise any civility.

Descartes, Copernicus, and Galileo would be dismayed (in my opinion) that you would be using them to interpret scripture (judging by what they wrote). And here is the key of where this kind of technique (historical/cultural comparison and Biblical Criticism) will lead. One simply cannot pick and choose in the Scriptures. It's most certainly true that all Denominations are guilty of this practice to some extent. Some however, have gone a wee bit too far.

I'm not using these thinkers to interpret scripture; as I pointed out above, higher criticism of scripture was not the issue for them at the outset of the scientific revolution. True enough, once the scientific community had freed itself from the authority of the church, it was only a matter of time before the historians caught wind of it and followed suit. But that wasn't Descartes's game, nor was it Copernicus's or Galileo's, nor did I claim anywhere that it was.

I want to put this "picking and choosing" accusation to rest, once and for all. (Well, OK, I know it's just a matter of time before it gets trotted out again, but I at least want to address it head-on.) Higher criticism has nothing to do with merely picking and choosing according to one's own wishes. There is a methodological rigor involved that precludes such unscholarly nonsense from passing muster. Higher criticism requires of its practitioners a willingness to follow the evidence where it leads, even if that is not someplace that the practitioners would prefer to go. To the extent that any practitioner of higher criticism refuses to follow the evidence where it leads, that practitioner ceases to be engaging in higher criticism. The same, of course, is true of any other approach to scripture.

The temptation to pick and choose is always there, and no methodology will guarantee that people won't give in to that temptation because people can always just part ways with the methodology. In fact, one of the strengths of higher criticism is its demand that its practitioners "show their work" so that it can publicly, readily and easily be brought out into the light of day whenever anyone strays away from a rigorous methodological approach into flights of their own fancy. I'm not saying that it doesn't happen, but rather that the public nature of higher criticism as a scholarly pursuit helps guarantee that those who do it will get called on it by their peers.

JoeCatch · #44 1st November 2009, 01:57 AM

Originally Posted by Studeclunker

God doesn't change. Homosexuality (for instance) is an entirely unacceptable practice that must not, under any circumstances, be permitted in the Church's leadership. And yet, the ELCA has declaired exactly the opposite, among other things. All of the ELCA's excesses are used like dirt to muddy the water of discource and hide their true agenda of making the Church more of the world. We are certainly supposed to be in the world preaching and teaching the good news. We are most certainly not supposed to be taking on the World's fallen practices and allowing them to corrupt the Church!

The true agenda of the ELCA is not "making the Church more of the world." That's just more conservative propaganda. It amazes me (well, sadly, it really doesn't, to be entirely honest with you) that these tired soundbites get trotted out so frequently and, whenever someone from the ELCA actually makes a well-reasoned case that these soundbites are misrepresentations of our views, the conservative/confessionals just repeat the soundbites rather than actually engaging the arguments.

This is patently obvious in the way that ELCA behaves. However, it must also be pointed out that no other conservative Christian body considers ELCA an example of Luther's Reformation, let alone a good example. It's interesting to note that one's 'lens' can be producing an inaccurate picture. However, just because the 'picture' one has is convenient doesn't mean the lens is in focus.

Well, it's a good thing that conservatives aren't the only arbiters of what is and isn't consistent with the principles of the Reformation. Accusation that our theological picture is formed out of convenience = just more conservative propaganda (i.e., not engaging our actual arguments, which I've taken some time to lay out here, about why we believe that our views are faithful to the norm of scripture rather than a denial of it).

The source is most certainly not the Bible. Wherever was Luther mentioned in the Bible? No, Paul didn't condone slavery. He did however, condone following the current laws as long as it didn't conflict with scripture. Onesimus was a slave lawfully held by his master Philemon. The master was reminded that his slave was his brother in Christ and commended to treat him as such.

This statement comes dangerously close to saying that the Bible is nothing but the writings of men. This is the claim of the Church Of Religious Science among others. I would hope it to be just poorly said, however by the behaviour of the ELCA's leadership it seems to be an unintentional slip of truth (in regards to truth of belief).

The source of the quote was an article on the ELCA Web site called The Bible. It was not my intention to give the impression that the text was quoted directly from the bible itself; I would have thought that the fact that it did directly mention Luther would have made that obvious.

For what it's worth, I agree that Paul did not condone slavery. And, yes, it is the ELCA's position that the authorship of the words of the bible texts is human. As I carefully pointed out in my previous post, we do not view the authority of the bible as stemming from some form of divine verbal authorship, as do the inerrantists. If the claim of New Thought movements is that the authority of scripture rests in its witness to the person of Christ as truly God and truly human, and in its power to produce for us an encounter with Christ, then this is the first I've heard of it. But I have been pretty clear that that's precisely what the authority of scripture means for us, so I'm confident that your fears about the danger of sliding into theologically sub-Christian New Thought are unfounded or, at the very least, vastly overstated.

The question is; how does the ELCA define said authority of Jesus? The problem with the above statement is that Scripture itself declares the authority of God. Christ himself claimed the authority of both God and Scripture (with himself subject to the Father {God}). Without the inerrency of scripture (not to be confused with translation of such), The very words of Christ himself are cast into doubt. The Gospels are reduced to an eyewhitness account and are suspect as such. Besides, does not Paul commend the Bereans their wisdom in comparing the teachings they have received against the scriptures? All preaching must be submitted to the litmus test of the Word. If it doesn't agree with the word, no amount of preaching about Jesus is going to be correct or trustworthy.

We ground the authority of Jesus in his being truly God and truly human. The denial of inerrantism does not necessarily put this kerygma in jeopardy. In fact, the church got along just fine without that doctrine for the vast majority of its history.

I agree that all preaching must be submitted to the litmus test of the Word. But, as I've pointed out before, we must be careful always to ensure that we properly understand "the Word" as being first and foremost Christ himself. This notion that all preaching must be submitted to the litmus test of, first and foremost, the bible (rather than Christ himself) is what I and others in the ELCA call biblicism.

You're operating under the assumption that higher/historical criticism has the effect of somehow undermining the authority of our preaching about Jesus, but on my view its effect is just the opposite. The human authors who wrote the texts that bear witness to his words and deeds wrote those texts because they believed that, by encountering him, they truly had an encounter with God. They believed that he was (and is!) God. The role of historical criticism is to shed light on what exactly it was that they saw and heard in his words and deeds that led them to proclaim that about him. There's a common misconception that higher criticism is somehow methodologically committed to a denial of the truth of the theological claims of the early Christian communities out of which the texts of the New Testament were produced. In fact, higher criticism makes no such assumptions--notably, that's really not even a methodological assumption at all to begin with. Historical-critical scholars are not the ruthless Christianity-debunkers that they are frequently portrayed as being. Christian scholars working with the tools of higher criticism are, on the contrary, motivated in their work by a deep, personal commitment to their faith that those theological claims about Christ are true, believe it or not.

Ah, and here we approach the doctrinal result of the Biblical Criticism movement that came after Luther. Hence the reason, Luther never addressed the issue, it was assumed in his time. There was no question at all about the inerrency of scripture, just the inerrency of Papal and dogmatic authority. Again, the doctrine of Biblical inerrency came after Luther because it wasn't an issue till Biblical Criticism became popular many, many years after Luther and the rest of the reformers had died.

As I have pointed out, this notion that inerrantism as we understand it was somehow simply assumed in Luther's time is anachronistic and entirely implausible. There's no need for me to repeat the reasons for that view here.

Luther would most likely have declaired any view, other than inerrent, of scripture to be heritical. But that's just my opinion.

Yes it is. And it's an entirely anachronistic and intellectually indefensible one.

I do believe that a denom can be too restrictive and also too loose here. WELS is one extreme and ELCA is the other. However, I would rather err on the side of caution and would take the side of WELS anytime over that of ELCA.

Personally, I would rather err on the side of freedom than on the side of fear. And, all too often (e.g., when some in this forum lash out in a personally threatened manner over the fact that ELCAers with whom they disagree are even allowed to participate here), what I see coming from conservative Christianity is a propensity to err on the side of fear.

You know, up here in the Pacific Northwest we have a wide variety of mushrooms. Some are really beautiful and quite deadly. some are bland in appearance, delicious and nutritious. Yet others are in the middle and classified as a 'controlled substance' as they are hallucinatory and sometimes can be deadly. One has to be very well versed as to which is which. Bad doctrine and theology can be like the first and last of these. They look a lot like the middle, and by this mistake, one can find themselves dead to the kingdom of God and part of the Kingdom of men. On that self-same wide road to destruction.

Point of clarifiation: psychedelic mushrooms are not poisonous, but your point is taken nevertheless. I agree that we must always test whatever teachings we receive against the norm of the Word of God (i.e., Christ). I hope I've helped shed some light on how we in the ELCA approach that task and dispelled some of the faulty but rampant assumptions that we simply don't concern ourselves with such things. The truth, for those who care to hear it, is that we are deeply concerned with remaining true to Christ. Too often the assumption here simply seems to be that anyone who doesn't reach the same conclusions in that endeavor that the conservative/confessionals reach isn't really trying, but is instead driven by other, ulterior motives. That assumption, common as it is, is simply unfounded.

JoeCatch · #45 1st November 2009, 01:13 AM

Originally Posted by DaRev

But much of what I have heard that the ELCA believes runs contrary to 2000 years of Christian teaching and history.

The question is whether it runs contrary to Christ and his gospel. History and tradition can err; surely they have erred and surely the do and will continue to err. Thus they are not the norm of our faith.

It is true that the Word of God is primarily Christ. But what we have been given by Him to be the norm of teaching in the Church is the Holy Writ. He is, after all, it's Divine Author. And what does He say precisely in His word? "Make disciples of all the nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit, teaching them to observe all that I commanded you." What has He commanded us to teach? That which He has given to us in His Holy Writ. So, either the ELCA claims some extra-biblical "divine revelation", or they have simply failed miserably at what our Lord has called His Church to do.

I think it's a stretch to claim that "all that I commanded you" would be a reference to the texts that would not yet be written for decades after the end of Christ's earthly ministry. That just doesn't seem to be a plausible reading of the text if we take as our starting point what the plain meaning would have been for the original audience.

Then I guess it depends on what the ELCA considers Scripture, because the Bible that I read clearly condemns many of the actions of the ELCA.

We consider to be scripture that which testifies to Christ (and, specifically, to what those who encountered him saw and heard in his words and deeds that led them to confess that he is the Christ). Scripture, in other words, is that which pushes Christ.

JoeCatch · #46 1st November 2009, 01:28 AM

Originally Posted by Protoevangel

I wonder how the LCMS website handles the clear words of Luther himself, then:

"I have learned to ascribe the honor of infallibility only to those books that are accepted as canonical. I am profoundly convinced that none of these writers have erred." (Martin Luther, WA 2, 618)

"I confess to your charity that I have learned to defer this respect and honor to those Scriptural books only which are now called canonical, that I believe most firmly that no one of those authors has erred in any respect in writing." (Augustine, Epistolae, 82. 1.3)

That's not to suggest he was right or wrong (I am not interjecting my own opinion, at this point, at least), but I just wonder how that legend about Luther's beliefs, and the wrong notion that te idea of inerrancy/infallibility has a late beginning, and is even repeated by the LCMS.

My point here is that the notion of authority changed from the time of Augustine to the time of Luther to the era of Lutheran Orthodoxy to the era of Liberal Protestantism. On what matters did Augustine consider the bible's authors not to have erred? In matters of science? Geography? History? Or did the notion of the bible as an authoritative text on non-theological matters arise later? My contention is that we cannot simply trot out quotes that appear to support the view that this or that pre-modern theologian affirmed the modern doctrine of inerrancy because we have to take into account what those theologians themselves would and would not have understood themselves to have been affirming. Retroactively attributing a view to Augustine (or Luther) that would not be articulated for centuries after his death--and even then, only in response to a set of issues that were not relevant in his own day--is anachronistic; it's not the way that responsible intellectual history is done.

Studeclunker · #47 1st November 2009, 10:57 AM

Originally Posted by Protoevangel
I wonder how the LCMS website handles the clear words of Luther himself, then:

"I have learned to ascribe the honor of infallibility only to those books that are accepted as canonical. I am profoundly convinced that none of these writers have erred." (Martin Luther, WA 2, 618)

"I confess to your charity that I have learned to defer this respect and honor to those Scriptural books only which are now called canonical, that I believe most firmly that no one of those authors has erred in any respect in writing." (Augustine, Epistolae, 82. 1.3)

That's not to suggest he was right or wrong (I am not interjecting my own opinion, at this point, at least), but I just wonder how that legend about Luther's beliefs, and the wrong notion that te idea of inerrancy/infallibility has a late beginning, and is even repeated by the LCMS.

Originally Posted by JoeCatch

My point here is that the notion of authority changed from the time of Augustine to the time of Luther to the era of Lutheran Orthodoxy to the era of Liberal Protestantism. On what matters did Augustine consider the bible's authors not to have erred? In matters of science? Geography? History? Or did the notion of the bible as an authoritative text on non-theological matters arise later? My contention is that we cannot simply trot out quotes that appear to support the view that this or that pre-modern theologian affirmed the modern doctrine of inerrancy because we have to take into account what those theologians themselves would and would not have understood themselves to have been affirming. Retroactively attributing a view to Augustine (or Luther) that would not be articulated for centuries after his death--and even then, only in response to a set of issues that were not relevant in his own day--is anachronistic; it's not the way that responsible intellectual history is done.

Here's a perfect example of someone who's faced with the truth and since his mind's made up, there's no point confusing him with facts.

Aparently, Joe, you've (as in yourself and the ELCA leadership) strayed so far from the truth of scripture, that the Holy Spirit has given you up to your reprobate minds.

What makes you and your teachers think that your collective wisdom is so much greater than the two thousand years of teachers and preachers ahead of you? How surpassingly arrogant!

LilLamb219 · #48 1st November 2009, 01:00 PM

Getting back to the OP's question....

I personally believe it because it backs up what scripture says concerning eternal punishment. Some people refuse to recite that creed because it is so incredibly long.

Originally Posted by Basil the Great

I visited an ELCA Church about 17 years ago and on that Sunday a visiting pastor chose the Athanasian Creed as creed of the day. However, when the time came to the section of the creed that professes eternal punishment, virtually the entire congregation became silent, leaving perhaps only 5% that were willing to recite said words. Such an experience led me to believe that only a very small percentage of ELCA Lutherans believe that Hell's torment is forever.

Regardless of your branch of Lutheranism, how many here personally believe in eternal punishment, as listed in the Anthanasian Creed?

Basil the Great · #49 1st November 2009, 01:56 PM

I was going to leave this lengthy debate that I began yesterday, since I let the sin of arrogance get the better of me. However, I see that I left something of import unmentioned.

Back in the days just prior to the creation of the ELCA, I had a conversation with a very devout LCMS man who had recently begun attending an ALC church when he moved from his hometown to a new city. This man was almost certainly very knowledgeable about Scripture, Lutheran theology and the historic Christian creeds, as he lad extremely long one-on-one talks with his ALC pastor and he also led a Bible study group at this ALC church. I recall that we had a discussion about the subject of Hell and eternal torment and his last statement on the subject after he defended the traditional view was that believing in the eternity of punishment was NOT essential for one's salvation.
Now at that time I was not familiar with the Athanasian Creed. Looking carefully at said creed now, I do not understand how this friend could possibly had made such a statement. If indeed he subscribed to the Athanasian Creed and I can only assume that as a devout LCMS man he did, said creed clearly states what a Christian must believe for one's salvation and one of said faith tenets is the eternity of Hell. Hence, it would seem now that my friend's statement was in total conflict with the creed.

So, I now ask a second question of all you who so kindly answered the first one in the affirmative. In the light of what the Athanasian Creed says, are you willing to openly state what said creed absolutely says, without a doubt, that a Christian must believe in the tenet of eternal punishment or he cannot be saved?

JoeCatch · #50 1st November 2009, 02:05 PM

Originally Posted by Studeclunker

Here's a perfect example of someone who's faced with the truth and since his mind's made up, there's no point confusing him with facts. Aparently, Joe, you've (as in yourself and the ELCA leadership) strayed so far from the truth of scripture, that the Holy Spirit has given you up to your reprobate minds.

What makes you and your teachers think that your collective wisdom is so much greater than the two thousand years of teachers and preachers ahead of you? How surpassingly arrogant!

Instead of actually dealing with the substance of my comments, you take the all-too-typical low road of resorting to personal attack. Way to stay classy there, Stude.

If you've made your mind up that an acknowledgment that pre-modern and modern thinkers were operating with drastically different understandings of the concept of authority is tantamount to reprobate-mindedness, then so be it. I really can't refute what's essentially nothing more than a naked ad hominem anyway, so just keep clinging to that narrative all you want as far as I'm concerned. Someone once wrote, "since his mind's made up, there's no use confusing him with the facts." In what could be considered a bit of situational irony, that remark seems awfully apropos of your own substance-free jab at me.

Look, nobody in their right mind would accuse the scientific community of arrogant reprobate-mindedness for acknowledging that they have a better understanding and better tools than scientists centuries before them had. Could you even imagine it? "What makes that punk Neil deGrasse Tyson think that his wisdom is so much greater than the two thousand years of astrophysicists ahead of him? Surely it couldn't be the discovery of all sorts of new and previously unimagined celestial bodies, or the invention of the telescope. It must just be unsurpassing arrogance!" Well, I think if you asked Tyson whether, for instance, Thales was a smart guy, he'd say, "yeah, obviously, Thales was brilliant. Clearly wrong about that whole 'water is the constitutive substance of the universe' bit, but brilliant." Is that unsurpassing arrogance, or just an acknowledgment that Tyson is in a different historical situation with better tools and a longer history of scientific development at his disposal? I think the answer is obvious. What truly would be arrogant, though, would be if Tyson were to read ancient and pre-modern scientists and proclaim, "See! Even though they were operating within a completely different conceptual framework and were interested in issues that were completely different from the ones I'm working on, they clearly and undisputedly took for granted the fact that I'm right!" Now that would be really, really, really arrogant. Any of that sound familiar, Stude?

Yes, the plain fact is that we have no problem with the claim that science has made some marked advances in the past several centuries, and our scientific understanding of the world is better now than it was before. Granted, at the outset, it wasn't so. Reactionary conservatives in the 17th century were just as threatened by heliocentrism then as present-day reactionary conservatives are by historical critical methodology now. And, of course, present-day reactionary conservatives do feel threatened by some new scientific understandings--cosmology and evolution, anyone?--but, for the most part, we've all come to accept that science today is an improvement upon science of 500 or 2,500 years ago. Nobody's calling astrophysicists who deny Thales's water cosmology arrogant or reprobate-minded.

And yet that's precisely the reception that historians receive whenever it's pointed out that new and better tools have been developed in their discipline as well. In the down-is-up world of reactionary conservatism, historians who acknowledge their own historical situatedness rather than simply porting their own worldview wholesale into the situations of the historical figures and eras they study are accused of arrogance. Somehow, acknowledging that we can't simply read our own situation into or apply our own conceptual framework onto past figures and events is not a mark of humility but of arrogance. That's unacceptable to me. To the extent that we do try to read our own situations into the past, we're not letting the figures of the past speak for themselves. This is a key (and, relatively speaking, recent) insight. That's not a knock against past historians, as surely many historians who lacked the tools and discoveries of present-day historians were brilliant and produced excellent work in their time. Nobody's denying that. But, just as brilliant scientists today are doing work that is surpassing that of brilliant scientists of past centuries (without denying that those past scientists truly were brilliant, mind you), so it is with history.

So why feel threatened by any of this? My faith is such that I don't need to feel threatened by the results of honest historical inquiry. Since honest historical inquiry and its tools (e.g., higher criticism and the acknowledgment of the situatedness of the historian) are no threat to me, then I have no problem making use of them. My faith is in a historical figure--Jesus Christ--and, to the extent that the tools of the historian can help add to our understanding of a historical figure and historical situations, I don't see why we would avoid making use of them in the case of the historical figure of Jesus Christ and the historical situation of the movement that sprung up around him. You accuse me of reprobate-mindedness for acknowledging the usefulness of these tools, and you're welcome to your opinion no matter how based in ignorance it is, but while you're hurling petty invectives, I'll keep holding fast to the true faith that has nothing to fear--not even those clearly evil and dangerous elbow-patched historians! You can keep your faith that fears seemingly everything.