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I think the closure of IDD has an important message for us. As a group, the various non-(Catholic/Orthodox) denominations do not share all that much doctrine past the Apostles' Creed or something similar to it.
When there was IDD, it was pretty easy for the P/R/E folks to unite against the common "enemy" of Orthodox/Catholic belief, and sit around talking about how cool it is that we don't believe any of that "weird stuff".
Only, now that IDD's closed, we're finding a few things out.
1. Some Protestants do believe some of that stuff.
2. We all believe a lot of stuff which seems weird to other Protestants.
It seems to me that, if indeed we are right to question the teaching authority of "the Church" as an entity, that the next option over is some form of sola scriptura. This has a clear weakness; we lack the teaching authority to guide us in interpretation. There is also a strength to this; there's no authority whose errors we would all copy.
Obviously, the Protestant reformation was rooted in the concern that the Church had, on some issues, fallen into error. This implies that it is possible for the Church to fall into error, and could be seen as a basis for continuing to reject the claims of authority on the Church's part.
I think this tends to lead to a couple of other errors. One is to assert that, being potentially fallible, they are generally wrong. I think this is a grave error. People who are fallible may nonetheless be very wise, and there are many Catholics whose relationship with God is one we should look up to, whether or not we agree with them on all things.
The other is the tendency to essentially declare ourselves, or our own church, to be the real infallible authority, the one whose interpretations are necessarily right.
I believe the tendency to do this is just as much an error in Lutherans or Baptists as I believe it is in Catholics.
I always saw the advantage of Protestants as being that we are, at any point, free to admit that we do not know, and free to try to learn more. There is no advantage to freedom from one potentially fallible set of dogma if we trap ourselves in another.
My answer to a great number of questions is quite simple. "I don't know yet." I don't know exactly what happens at communion. I don't know exactly when, from our parents thinking about having sex to age 18, we acquire our souls. I don't necessarily really understand God's triune nature. I don't know how predestination, foreknowledge, and free will interact.
I have strong opinions on many of these issues, but the foundation remains always the sense of wonder, the admission that these questions are not ones I have certain answers to. Faith, to me, implies leaving the door open a bit.
The somewhat hostile tone of many debates I've seen in this forum suggests that, if the Catholics are guilty of pride, then so too are the Protestants. I think we should make a greater effort to learn from each other about the ways in which other people have come to understand God.
A friend of mine made some very interesting comments the other day on the nature of Christian doctrine. The Bible tells us some things; for instance, it tells us that Jesus is God, and that the Holy Spirit is God, and that God is one. It doesn't explain how this works, or how it's possible. If you want to be really pedantic, it doesn't even exclude the possibility that there's a fourth Divine Person we don't know about. (Before you reject this too quickly, consider how angry the Pharisees were at the allegation that there was a third...) The Bible talks to us about the importance of our choices, and about God's grace. It doesn't explain how exactly these interact.
What we tend to do is build explanations that fit all this data, but these explanations are our own inventions. We see that the Bible says Jesus was born to Mary, and we wonder how a woman with sinful nature could have done that. One answer is to declare the doctrine of the Immaculate Conception, and indeed, that is a resolution. However, it's an inference; it isn't actually directly explained to us.
The majority of the doctrine we dispute and feud over is likewise our inferences, our interpretations, layered on top of the bare facts set out in the Bible, or handed down by tradition. We tend to forget how much of what we believe is merely human guesses, added to what the Bible says so we can make sense of it.
I think a bit of humility would go a long way in this. The foundation of the Protestant movement was an aversion to building too much new doctrine on top of what we found in the Bible. It seems that the problem is not merely one of large churches, or specific people, but rather, an aspect of human nature. If we wish to show that there are reasons to be Protestant, we should remember what they were going to be in the first place, and act on them.
When there was IDD, it was pretty easy for the P/R/E folks to unite against the common "enemy" of Orthodox/Catholic belief, and sit around talking about how cool it is that we don't believe any of that "weird stuff".
Only, now that IDD's closed, we're finding a few things out.
1. Some Protestants do believe some of that stuff.
2. We all believe a lot of stuff which seems weird to other Protestants.
It seems to me that, if indeed we are right to question the teaching authority of "the Church" as an entity, that the next option over is some form of sola scriptura. This has a clear weakness; we lack the teaching authority to guide us in interpretation. There is also a strength to this; there's no authority whose errors we would all copy.
Obviously, the Protestant reformation was rooted in the concern that the Church had, on some issues, fallen into error. This implies that it is possible for the Church to fall into error, and could be seen as a basis for continuing to reject the claims of authority on the Church's part.
I think this tends to lead to a couple of other errors. One is to assert that, being potentially fallible, they are generally wrong. I think this is a grave error. People who are fallible may nonetheless be very wise, and there are many Catholics whose relationship with God is one we should look up to, whether or not we agree with them on all things.
The other is the tendency to essentially declare ourselves, or our own church, to be the real infallible authority, the one whose interpretations are necessarily right.
I believe the tendency to do this is just as much an error in Lutherans or Baptists as I believe it is in Catholics.
I always saw the advantage of Protestants as being that we are, at any point, free to admit that we do not know, and free to try to learn more. There is no advantage to freedom from one potentially fallible set of dogma if we trap ourselves in another.
My answer to a great number of questions is quite simple. "I don't know yet." I don't know exactly what happens at communion. I don't know exactly when, from our parents thinking about having sex to age 18, we acquire our souls. I don't necessarily really understand God's triune nature. I don't know how predestination, foreknowledge, and free will interact.
I have strong opinions on many of these issues, but the foundation remains always the sense of wonder, the admission that these questions are not ones I have certain answers to. Faith, to me, implies leaving the door open a bit.
The somewhat hostile tone of many debates I've seen in this forum suggests that, if the Catholics are guilty of pride, then so too are the Protestants. I think we should make a greater effort to learn from each other about the ways in which other people have come to understand God.
A friend of mine made some very interesting comments the other day on the nature of Christian doctrine. The Bible tells us some things; for instance, it tells us that Jesus is God, and that the Holy Spirit is God, and that God is one. It doesn't explain how this works, or how it's possible. If you want to be really pedantic, it doesn't even exclude the possibility that there's a fourth Divine Person we don't know about. (Before you reject this too quickly, consider how angry the Pharisees were at the allegation that there was a third...) The Bible talks to us about the importance of our choices, and about God's grace. It doesn't explain how exactly these interact.
What we tend to do is build explanations that fit all this data, but these explanations are our own inventions. We see that the Bible says Jesus was born to Mary, and we wonder how a woman with sinful nature could have done that. One answer is to declare the doctrine of the Immaculate Conception, and indeed, that is a resolution. However, it's an inference; it isn't actually directly explained to us.
The majority of the doctrine we dispute and feud over is likewise our inferences, our interpretations, layered on top of the bare facts set out in the Bible, or handed down by tradition. We tend to forget how much of what we believe is merely human guesses, added to what the Bible says so we can make sense of it.
I think a bit of humility would go a long way in this. The foundation of the Protestant movement was an aversion to building too much new doctrine on top of what we found in the Bible. It seems that the problem is not merely one of large churches, or specific people, but rather, an aspect of human nature. If we wish to show that there are reasons to be Protestant, we should remember what they were going to be in the first place, and act on them.
