Sola Fide? Where's the proof?
Just shows how we accept statements without evidence, even in our doctrine. Has anyone questioned sola fide? Apparently not, because sola fide challenged fide et labore, and the latter camp couldn't put up a robust enough rebuttal to demolish the upstarts. Maybe that has to change. maybe a new understanding of James 2 will do just that. Who has the corner on truth anyway?
See this is the thing.
Why is the Bible misread? Mostly because of the hermeneutic employed, grammatical historical. And it's offshoot, common sense realism.
Most of the conclusions reached by major expositor's, and participants on various Christian discussions evokes a reaction of, "In your dreams!" from me. Not rhetoric, I really mean those words, or in a more calm way, "Maybe only in the context you imagine existed for that particular text".
Let me offer an example.
In an article by Dr Wallace, he explains how a statement like "My aunt loves climbing vines" could mean visualising Aunt Agatha in full white hunter regalia hopping out of her Landrover on reaching the wilds of Africa, leaping up to grab a handful of liana and swinging from tree to tree like Tarzan. Or it could mean Aunt Agatha, when wheeled out into the garden by Nursie, brightens up when she is placed in front of the ivy covered walls of the retirement home.[1]
In the first context, the relevant conclusion is perfectly acceptable. In the second, ditto. The question being, who has the right context?
In another article, Dr Wallace explains why Scottish Common Senses Realism exacerbates the problem, with its insistence that biblical hermeneutics is like a science. Holding that using the latter's analytical method, definitive conclusions can be arrived at.
Biblical literature is history, and all history, by dint of separation from the events by time and geography, can only be approximations. However, jettisoning the Enlightenment's invention of modernism should not cause a swing to the other extreme of the emergent church's postmodernism; abandoning the dogmatism of the former should not mean settling for the ambiguity of the latter. Historical research conclusions are probabilities, not certaintities or uncertaintities.[2][3][4]
Probabilities are useful, entire systems like governments, economies, world views and even medical cures running on this basis.
The problem is that most of the held doctrine today are fruit of common sense realism. Why is it that misreading of the Bible persists, why the resistance to new work by scholars like Wright and Witherington, Horton and Warnock?
The answer? Inertia.
Let's use yet another example to demonstrate the problem. Feynman posited that a large portion of papers submitted for peer review are accepted without verification, because quantum physics has become so specialized, there really is no peer review. Specialisation means fewer and fewer scientists share a particular field of research. What then is the new filter for separating bad science from good?
Industrial interest!
So when industry actually ponied up the funds and offered to commercialize cold fusion, Fleischman had to put up or shut up. What scientific falsification could not do, commercial greed did.
In a parallel observation, since there is no immediate benefit from filtering bad doctrine from good, no real interest is given to it, nor is the might of Big Business brought to bear on it. Else all the holes in the various conclusions would be exposed.
That is the operative word, right? Immediate.
Since the prospect of receiving an unfavorable judgment is a distant one, can we be blamed if our attitude to growth and effort to reach a goal is lackadaisical?
What we are missing is the biblical description of the Christian experience:
Matthew 13:44"The kingdom of heaven is like treasure hidden in a field. When a man found it, he hid it again, and then in his joy went and sold all he had and bought that field.
What then can we do about our situation?
Well, plenty.
In order to possess eternal life, as always, a good grasp of the biblical material is needed.
Through the gathering together of the saints.
Through mutual edification.
Through constructive critiquing of each others views (my nick is "footwasher" on most Christian discussions!).
Through irenic, fair discussion.
Through using biblical principles of checking against the text.
Through leaning towards higher criticism, redactive hermeneutics.
Is it possible to find holes in the above conclusions?
[1]Reason Two: Laziness
Part and parcel of this abuse of Scripture is laziness.That is, most people simply don't take the trouble to read the context or to do their homework on the meaning of the Bible. And even when they are confronted with overwhelming evidence that is contrary to their view, they often glibly reply, "That's just your interpretation."This kind of response sounds as if all interpretations are up for grabs, as though all interpretations are equally plausible. Such a view is patently false. Take the following sentence as an example: "My mother likes climbing vines." One interpretation of these words is not just as valid as another. This sentence cannot mean "My father is an auto mechanic." "Mother" does not mean "Father"; "likes" does not mean "is"; "climbing vines" is not a synonym for "auto mechanic." Language cannot be twisted in this manner. Now, without a context, there are, however, two distinct options for the sentence in question.] Either "My mother likes vines that climb" or "My mother likes to climb vines." Which is the right view? The only way to tell is to look at the context of the utterance--or to ask the author of the sentence! Both things are done in biblical interpretation. Sometimes the context solves the problem; other times, the more we know about an author, the better able we are to determine his meaning. But one recipe for missing the meaning of the text is to be too casual about it.After all, did not Paul tell Timothy, "Study to show yourself approved"?
https://bible.org/article/scripture-twisting-read-me-first
========
[2]DBW: Up until the last few years, I would say—and have said—that the practice of textual criticism neither needs nor deserves any theological presuppositions. For example, I am not convinced that the Bible speaks of its own preservation. That doctrine was first introduced in the Westminster Confession, but it is not something that can be found in scripture. But with the rise of postmodern approaches to biblical studies, where all views are created equal, it seems that theology is having a role in the discussion. The question is, Is it the right theology? What I didn’t care for about modernism was its tendency toward dogmatism; what I don’t care for about postmodernism is its tendency toward scepticism. I think we’ve jumped out of the frying pan of modernist certainty and into the fire of postmodern uncertainty. At bottom, historical investigation has to deal with probabilities. These fall short of certainty, but all views are not created equal.
https://bible.org/article/interview-daniel-b-wallace-textual-criticism
==============
[3]Scottish Common Sense Realism was popularized in America by John Witherspoon, the sixth President of Princeton University, where he used it as a weapon to vanquish the continuing influence of the idealism of Jonathan Edwards.15 From Princeton University, the philosophy spread swiftly throughout the land through the higher educational system. The swiftness of its acceptance was due to the fact that Scottish Realism “…contained an immediate conviction of right and wrong, of the reality of the external world, freedom… about which there was no need or warrant for debate or doubt, while its discussion of association, will, and feeling, was lucidity itself, and fitted for our practical country.”16
There were several key assumptions involved in Common Sense Realism. Among these was the objective tangibility of the world as understood by Newtonian physics. Thomas Reid himself had contended that without this key assumption man was cut off from certain knowledge that could be gained by the inductive method.17 The ultimate result of this severance would be hopeless skepticism. Secondly, Common Sense posited the reliability of the senses in perceiving reality.18 By means of one’s senses the individual was able to know “the thing in itself.” Thirdly, there was a strict subject-object dichotomy. From this distinction flowed the characteristic methodology of Common Sense: empiricism. Truth was to be discovered strictly through the inductive method. The empiricism of the method did not, however, belie a materialism. Common Sense saw the universe ruled by natural law, a law that included moral precepts.19 The method assumed that there was objective truth available to man and that such truth was unchanging.20
https://bible.org/book/export/html/6425
============
[4]The Influence of Common Sense Realism on Early Dispensationalism
It is important to note that despite its overwhelming acceptance, many American Christians were unaware of Common Sense Realism as an actual philosophical system. Writes Noll, “For much of the history of the United States, evangelicals denied that they had a philosophy. They were merely pursuing common sense.”7 Diogenes Allen adds that the resulting effect of this catechesis of Common Sense Realism was, “a static view of Christian doctrine and morals with no sense of historic [one might add, philosophic] development.”8 In fact, as dispensationalism was first being articulated, it seems to have simply assumed as unquestioned fact many of the tenets of Common Sense Realism. After all, one wasn’t necessarily doing philosophy by simply using common sense, was he? Thus, when one encounters hermeneutics texts by early dispensationalist authors (and other Enlightenment theologians, as well), very little space, if any, is given in defense of the philosophical foundations of the interpretative methodological approach being offered. It seems that more often than not, dispensationalists were either unaware of or had simply ignored the role of philosophical presuppositions in their hermeneutical methodology. Bernard Ramm points out this characteristic ineptness towards philosophy in Lewis Sperry Chafer’s theology, in particular. “In reading Chafer’s theology, it is apparent that he is not at home at all in philosophy. He makes rare references to philosophers, and in most cases Chafer is citing some other source and not the philosopher directly.”9
https://bible.org/article/relations...lism’s-hermeneutics-and-ia-priorii-faith-comm
---------------------------------------------
Part 2
------
To give some teeth to the discussion, let's use some real examples of misreading of the text.
In a popular systematic theology, the law is assigned the function of a mirror. It cannot save, it can only reveal our sins. Thus, law has a negative connotation in this interpretation. If used as a salvific method, the law can only lead to death, as cursed is the one who observes the law and fails at even one.
However no mention of the law in its positive sense is made. Demonstrated in a similar way here:
Quote
N.T. Wright wrote:
I was puzzled by one exegetical issue in particular, which I here oversimplify for the sake of summary. If I read Paul in the then standard Lutheran way, Galatians made plenty of sense, but I had to fudge (as I could see dozens of writers fudging) the positive statements about the Law in Romans. If I read Paul in the Reformed way of which, for me, Charles Cranfield remains the supreme exegetical exemplar, Romans made a lot of sense, but I had to fudge (as I could see Cranfield fudging) the negative statements about the Law in Galatians.
http://ntwrightpage.com/Wright_New_Perspectives.htm
Let me show how a parallel error can be isolated and highlighted here:
Quote
Gregory (Scotland Yard detective): "Is there any other point to which you would wish to draw my attention?"
Holmes: "To the curious incident of the dog in the night-time."
Gregory: "The dog did nothing in the night-time."
Holmes: "That was the curious incident."[2]
Silver Blaze - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
In the story, the crime has been solved, the criminal has been captured. Some loose ends exist, which the police explain away as irrelevant.
Mirrored in the dismissive attitude of theologians who are faced with inconvenient evidence existence of which need to be explained. Generally taken care of by the stand that the evidence is part of another situation. Finally by hiding the evidence in a "cold" file: no situation found for the evidence.
Good doctrine must find a place for every piece of evidence.
N.T. Wright wrote:
But as I struggled this way and that with the Greek text of Romans and Galatians, it dawned on me, I think in 1976, that a different solution was possible. In Romans 10.3 Paul, writing about his fellow Jews, declares that they are ignorant of the righteousness of God, and are seeking to establish ‘their own righteousness’. The wider context, not least 9.30–33, deals with the respective positions of Jews and Gentiles within God’s purposes – and with a lot more besides, of course, but not least that. Supposing, I thought, Paul meant ‘seeking to establish their own righteousness’, not in the sense of a moral status based on the performance of Torah and the consequent accumulation of a treasury of merit, but an ethnic status based on the possession of Torah as the sign of automatic covenant membership? I saw at once that this would make excellent sense of Romans 9 and 10, and would enable the positive statements about the Law throughout Romans to be given full weight while making it clear that this kind of use of Torah, as an ethnic talisman, was an abuse. I sat up in bed that night reading through Galatians and saw that at point after point this way of looking at Paul would make much better sense of Galatians, too, than either the standard post-Luther readings or the attempted Reformed ones.
http://ntwrightpage.com/Wright_New_Perspectives.htm
Last edited: Jun 13, 2014
Just shows how we accept statements without evidence, even in our doctrine. Has anyone questioned sola fide? Apparently not, because sola fide challenged fide et labore, and the latter camp couldn't put up a robust enough rebuttal to demolish the upstarts. Maybe that has to change. maybe a new understanding of James 2 will do just that. Who has the corner on truth anyway?
See this is the thing.
Why is the Bible misread? Mostly because of the hermeneutic employed, grammatical historical. And it's offshoot, common sense realism.
Most of the conclusions reached by major expositor's, and participants on various Christian discussions evokes a reaction of, "In your dreams!" from me. Not rhetoric, I really mean those words, or in a more calm way, "Maybe only in the context you imagine existed for that particular text".
Let me offer an example.
In an article by Dr Wallace, he explains how a statement like "My aunt loves climbing vines" could mean visualising Aunt Agatha in full white hunter regalia hopping out of her Landrover on reaching the wilds of Africa, leaping up to grab a handful of liana and swinging from tree to tree like Tarzan. Or it could mean Aunt Agatha, when wheeled out into the garden by Nursie, brightens up when she is placed in front of the ivy covered walls of the retirement home.[1]
In the first context, the relevant conclusion is perfectly acceptable. In the second, ditto. The question being, who has the right context?
In another article, Dr Wallace explains why Scottish Common Senses Realism exacerbates the problem, with its insistence that biblical hermeneutics is like a science. Holding that using the latter's analytical method, definitive conclusions can be arrived at.
Biblical literature is history, and all history, by dint of separation from the events by time and geography, can only be approximations. However, jettisoning the Enlightenment's invention of modernism should not cause a swing to the other extreme of the emergent church's postmodernism; abandoning the dogmatism of the former should not mean settling for the ambiguity of the latter. Historical research conclusions are probabilities, not certaintities or uncertaintities.[2][3][4]
Probabilities are useful, entire systems like governments, economies, world views and even medical cures running on this basis.
The problem is that most of the held doctrine today are fruit of common sense realism. Why is it that misreading of the Bible persists, why the resistance to new work by scholars like Wright and Witherington, Horton and Warnock?
The answer? Inertia.
Let's use yet another example to demonstrate the problem. Feynman posited that a large portion of papers submitted for peer review are accepted without verification, because quantum physics has become so specialized, there really is no peer review. Specialisation means fewer and fewer scientists share a particular field of research. What then is the new filter for separating bad science from good?
Industrial interest!
So when industry actually ponied up the funds and offered to commercialize cold fusion, Fleischman had to put up or shut up. What scientific falsification could not do, commercial greed did.
In a parallel observation, since there is no immediate benefit from filtering bad doctrine from good, no real interest is given to it, nor is the might of Big Business brought to bear on it. Else all the holes in the various conclusions would be exposed.
That is the operative word, right? Immediate.
Since the prospect of receiving an unfavorable judgment is a distant one, can we be blamed if our attitude to growth and effort to reach a goal is lackadaisical?
What we are missing is the biblical description of the Christian experience:
Matthew 13:44"The kingdom of heaven is like treasure hidden in a field. When a man found it, he hid it again, and then in his joy went and sold all he had and bought that field.
What then can we do about our situation?
Well, plenty.
In order to possess eternal life, as always, a good grasp of the biblical material is needed.
Through the gathering together of the saints.
Through mutual edification.
Through constructive critiquing of each others views (my nick is "footwasher" on most Christian discussions!).
Through irenic, fair discussion.
Through using biblical principles of checking against the text.
Through leaning towards higher criticism, redactive hermeneutics.
Is it possible to find holes in the above conclusions?
[1]Reason Two: Laziness
Part and parcel of this abuse of Scripture is laziness.That is, most people simply don't take the trouble to read the context or to do their homework on the meaning of the Bible. And even when they are confronted with overwhelming evidence that is contrary to their view, they often glibly reply, "That's just your interpretation."This kind of response sounds as if all interpretations are up for grabs, as though all interpretations are equally plausible. Such a view is patently false. Take the following sentence as an example: "My mother likes climbing vines." One interpretation of these words is not just as valid as another. This sentence cannot mean "My father is an auto mechanic." "Mother" does not mean "Father"; "likes" does not mean "is"; "climbing vines" is not a synonym for "auto mechanic." Language cannot be twisted in this manner. Now, without a context, there are, however, two distinct options for the sentence in question.] Either "My mother likes vines that climb" or "My mother likes to climb vines." Which is the right view? The only way to tell is to look at the context of the utterance--or to ask the author of the sentence! Both things are done in biblical interpretation. Sometimes the context solves the problem; other times, the more we know about an author, the better able we are to determine his meaning. But one recipe for missing the meaning of the text is to be too casual about it.After all, did not Paul tell Timothy, "Study to show yourself approved"?
https://bible.org/article/scripture-twisting-read-me-first
========
[2]DBW: Up until the last few years, I would say—and have said—that the practice of textual criticism neither needs nor deserves any theological presuppositions. For example, I am not convinced that the Bible speaks of its own preservation. That doctrine was first introduced in the Westminster Confession, but it is not something that can be found in scripture. But with the rise of postmodern approaches to biblical studies, where all views are created equal, it seems that theology is having a role in the discussion. The question is, Is it the right theology? What I didn’t care for about modernism was its tendency toward dogmatism; what I don’t care for about postmodernism is its tendency toward scepticism. I think we’ve jumped out of the frying pan of modernist certainty and into the fire of postmodern uncertainty. At bottom, historical investigation has to deal with probabilities. These fall short of certainty, but all views are not created equal.
https://bible.org/article/interview-daniel-b-wallace-textual-criticism
==============
[3]Scottish Common Sense Realism was popularized in America by John Witherspoon, the sixth President of Princeton University, where he used it as a weapon to vanquish the continuing influence of the idealism of Jonathan Edwards.15 From Princeton University, the philosophy spread swiftly throughout the land through the higher educational system. The swiftness of its acceptance was due to the fact that Scottish Realism “…contained an immediate conviction of right and wrong, of the reality of the external world, freedom… about which there was no need or warrant for debate or doubt, while its discussion of association, will, and feeling, was lucidity itself, and fitted for our practical country.”16
There were several key assumptions involved in Common Sense Realism. Among these was the objective tangibility of the world as understood by Newtonian physics. Thomas Reid himself had contended that without this key assumption man was cut off from certain knowledge that could be gained by the inductive method.17 The ultimate result of this severance would be hopeless skepticism. Secondly, Common Sense posited the reliability of the senses in perceiving reality.18 By means of one’s senses the individual was able to know “the thing in itself.” Thirdly, there was a strict subject-object dichotomy. From this distinction flowed the characteristic methodology of Common Sense: empiricism. Truth was to be discovered strictly through the inductive method. The empiricism of the method did not, however, belie a materialism. Common Sense saw the universe ruled by natural law, a law that included moral precepts.19 The method assumed that there was objective truth available to man and that such truth was unchanging.20
https://bible.org/book/export/html/6425
============
[4]The Influence of Common Sense Realism on Early Dispensationalism
It is important to note that despite its overwhelming acceptance, many American Christians were unaware of Common Sense Realism as an actual philosophical system. Writes Noll, “For much of the history of the United States, evangelicals denied that they had a philosophy. They were merely pursuing common sense.”7 Diogenes Allen adds that the resulting effect of this catechesis of Common Sense Realism was, “a static view of Christian doctrine and morals with no sense of historic [one might add, philosophic] development.”8 In fact, as dispensationalism was first being articulated, it seems to have simply assumed as unquestioned fact many of the tenets of Common Sense Realism. After all, one wasn’t necessarily doing philosophy by simply using common sense, was he? Thus, when one encounters hermeneutics texts by early dispensationalist authors (and other Enlightenment theologians, as well), very little space, if any, is given in defense of the philosophical foundations of the interpretative methodological approach being offered. It seems that more often than not, dispensationalists were either unaware of or had simply ignored the role of philosophical presuppositions in their hermeneutical methodology. Bernard Ramm points out this characteristic ineptness towards philosophy in Lewis Sperry Chafer’s theology, in particular. “In reading Chafer’s theology, it is apparent that he is not at home at all in philosophy. He makes rare references to philosophers, and in most cases Chafer is citing some other source and not the philosopher directly.”9
https://bible.org/article/relations...lism’s-hermeneutics-and-ia-priorii-faith-comm
---------------------------------------------
Part 2
------
To give some teeth to the discussion, let's use some real examples of misreading of the text.
In a popular systematic theology, the law is assigned the function of a mirror. It cannot save, it can only reveal our sins. Thus, law has a negative connotation in this interpretation. If used as a salvific method, the law can only lead to death, as cursed is the one who observes the law and fails at even one.
However no mention of the law in its positive sense is made. Demonstrated in a similar way here:
Quote
N.T. Wright wrote:
I was puzzled by one exegetical issue in particular, which I here oversimplify for the sake of summary. If I read Paul in the then standard Lutheran way, Galatians made plenty of sense, but I had to fudge (as I could see dozens of writers fudging) the positive statements about the Law in Romans. If I read Paul in the Reformed way of which, for me, Charles Cranfield remains the supreme exegetical exemplar, Romans made a lot of sense, but I had to fudge (as I could see Cranfield fudging) the negative statements about the Law in Galatians.
http://ntwrightpage.com/Wright_New_Perspectives.htm
Let me show how a parallel error can be isolated and highlighted here:
Quote
Gregory (Scotland Yard detective): "Is there any other point to which you would wish to draw my attention?"
Holmes: "To the curious incident of the dog in the night-time."
Gregory: "The dog did nothing in the night-time."
Holmes: "That was the curious incident."[2]
Silver Blaze - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
In the story, the crime has been solved, the criminal has been captured. Some loose ends exist, which the police explain away as irrelevant.
Mirrored in the dismissive attitude of theologians who are faced with inconvenient evidence existence of which need to be explained. Generally taken care of by the stand that the evidence is part of another situation. Finally by hiding the evidence in a "cold" file: no situation found for the evidence.
Good doctrine must find a place for every piece of evidence.
N.T. Wright wrote:
But as I struggled this way and that with the Greek text of Romans and Galatians, it dawned on me, I think in 1976, that a different solution was possible. In Romans 10.3 Paul, writing about his fellow Jews, declares that they are ignorant of the righteousness of God, and are seeking to establish ‘their own righteousness’. The wider context, not least 9.30–33, deals with the respective positions of Jews and Gentiles within God’s purposes – and with a lot more besides, of course, but not least that. Supposing, I thought, Paul meant ‘seeking to establish their own righteousness’, not in the sense of a moral status based on the performance of Torah and the consequent accumulation of a treasury of merit, but an ethnic status based on the possession of Torah as the sign of automatic covenant membership? I saw at once that this would make excellent sense of Romans 9 and 10, and would enable the positive statements about the Law throughout Romans to be given full weight while making it clear that this kind of use of Torah, as an ethnic talisman, was an abuse. I sat up in bed that night reading through Galatians and saw that at point after point this way of looking at Paul would make much better sense of Galatians, too, than either the standard post-Luther readings or the attempted Reformed ones.
http://ntwrightpage.com/Wright_New_Perspectives.htm
Last edited: Jun 13, 2014
