The PCA, Subscription and the Creation Week

[Jon_]

it is this level of metadiscussions that i am curious about. not the details of the particular issues, but how can the discuss even occur?

I see. These are good questions.

say the PCA held to the 1647.
and there was a group of pastor's who wanted to delete the phrase on making the limits of consanguinity equal to the limits of affinity and remove the penalities for it as practice in the past.

Even if the article were explicitly removed from the Confession, the spirit of the Confession (and its "catch-all" clause, 1:10) necessitates that it always be consistent with the Scriptures. If the consanguinity clause were removed, the Scriptures still forbid incestuous marriages, and the Confession submits to Scripture on all matters of faith, life, and practice. As a result, while the explicit content of the Confession is affected, the implicit content is not.

In other words, the spirit of the Confession does not abide to be placed in tension with the Bible.

since subscription standards are not part of the WCF, how do they express their disagrement with the standards without violating their subscription? without a clear route to amend the confession, how can the discussion even begin, what is it that those pastor's are asking for, being as amendments are not setup?

Well, there are a few ways to look at what it means to subscribe to the Confession.

In the first, you believe the entire Confession, the spirit in which it was written, and its infallible foundation (Scripture). A second way is to establish some arbitrary standards about how much of the Confession or what parts must be believed in order to subscribe to it. The third way is to simply take an oath or affirmation that you believe the first way or second way, but not require any other action or inaction apart from that.

As far as I'm concerned, only the first is tenable. You could introduce a different class of subscription, though: subscription under protest; or: subscription with reservation, etc. This is really just a reclassification of those that fall under option #2 above, though.

or take the erastian features of the 1647 confession. President Bush calls for a church wide council to write a new Christian Constitution and uses the clause in the confession to compel the Presbyterians to attend. what is the response from this imaginary 1647 subscribing to PCA?

Bush has no basis for citing a clause in a confession to which he does not subscribe. His lack of faith in historic orthodox Presbyterianism makes his call to Presbyterians an hypocritical farce.

Soli Deo Gloria

Jon

 

[frumanchu]

ok.
say the PCA held to the 1647.
and there was a group of pastor's who wanted to delete the phrase on making the limits of consanguinity equal to the limits of affinity and remove the penalities for it as practiced in the past.

since subscription standards are not part of the WCF, how do they express their disagrement with the standards without violating their subscription? without a clear route to amend the confession, how can the discussion even begin, what is it that those pastor's are asking for, being as amendments are not setup?

or take the erastian features of the 1647 confession. President Bush calls for a church wide council to write a new Christian Constitution and uses the clause in the confession to compel the Presbyterians to attend. what is the response from this imaginary 1647 subscribing to PCA?

it is this level of metadiscussions that i am curious about. not the details of the particular issues, but how can the discussions even occur?

Friend, there is no ammending the WCF in and of itself. The WCF is adopted as the creedal standard of the church, but the church has the ultimate say in what it's standards of orthodoxy are. As such, the moment they make alterations to the WCF they do so within the context of their own institution. Strictly speaking they are requiring subscription to the WCF with exceptions or clarifications particular to their institution.

The WCF was never designed to be amended. It was designed to state orthodoxy with the utmost clarity possible. IIRC, the PCA does not hold an extreme subscriptionist view. I remember R.C. Sproul mentioning his examination for ordination in which he was required to state any disagreements he had with the WCF, and he cited the wording of Ch XXI, Article VIII and his disagreement with the Continentals over the issue of recreation on the Sabbath. That obviously did not prevent his ordination.

As to the original post, it contained the following:

For example, to say that four different understandings of the length of the days of creation are equally valid seems to me to be an untenable position. Each of the views rejects the others. How can they all be correct?

The answer is that they cannot. However, the first statement does not say that all four are correct, but only that they are valid. In terms of formal logic, valid does not necessarily mean true.

The WCF refers thus to Creation (IV,i):

It pleased God the Father, Son, and Holy Ghost, for the manifestation of the glory of his eternal power, wisdom, and goodness, in the beginning, to create or make of nothing the world, and all things therein, whether visible or invisible, in the space of six days, and all very good.
​

It does not speak definitively to what "in the space of six days" means. Thus it is likely that one could hold to a figurative understanding of this issue and not be in contradiction to the Confession.

 

[rmwilliamsll]

Strictly speaking they are requiring subscription to the WCF with exceptions or clarifications particular to their institution.


ok.
where in the Confession is the word subscription?
what does it mean to subscribe?
what does it mean to take exceptions?

that is the very problem, the details of the issue are not part of the confession. the meta level of the discussion, how to discuss the issues, is itself not defined, but rather is the result of the church working out the problems over history.

it is that problem that makes all the issues that would be amendments to the confession over time always end up as discussions of subscription. even though the whole issue of subscription is itself not part of the document.


look at a answer to the consanguinity problem in the WCF 1647

Even if the article were explicitly removed from the Confession, the spirit of the Confession (and its "catch-all" clause, 1:10) necessitates that it always be consistent with the Scriptures. If the consanguinity clause were removed, the Scriptures still forbid incestuous marriages, and the Confession submits to Scripture on all matters of faith, life, and practice. As a result, while the explicit content of the Confession is affected, the implicit content is not.

In other words, the spirit of the Confession does not abide to be placed in tension with the Bible.

what happens when the definition of incest changes over time? which is what is driving this issue.
the issue remains: if i were a widower could i marry my dead wife's sister? in the PCA but not in the churches which use the WCF 1647.
so has the WCF been amended or not?
effectively, by adoption of different version and by the introduction of taking scruples in 1729. however neither revisions, nor amendments, nor scruples, nor exceptions were written back into the confession itself. thus every other issue that embarks down that path ends up being a discussion about scruples and subscription types/strength.

 

[frumanchu]

Strictly speaking they are requiring subscription to the WCF with exceptions or clarifications particular to their institution.


ok.
where in the Confession is the word subscription?
what does it mean to subscribe?
what does it mean to take exceptions?

that is the very problem, the details of the issue are not part of the confession. the meta level of the discussion, how to discuss the issues, is itself not defined, but rather is the result of the church working out the problems over history.

it is that problem that makes all the issues that would be amendments to the confession over time always end up as discussions of subscription. even though the whole issue of subscription is itself not part of the document.

You are correct that subscription itself is not a part of the document.

ALL churches are creedal (even the "anti-creedal" churches like the Campbellite ones). The question is what, institutionally, is the covenantal standard governing the church. When the PCA in particular started, they used the Westminster Confession as the standard of orthodoxy for their church. In institutional terms, it is the church's creed by which it stands or falls. I know you've read North's Crossed Fingers, so you should have some idea of what I'm talking about. Any change in what the church views as orthodox is a VERY serious matter, because that creed is the standard by which sanctions are imposed, both positive and negative.

So, in the case of making modifications the issue of subscription will ALWAYS come up because we are dealing with the covenantal foundation of the church as an institution.

look at a answer to the consanguinity problem in the WCF 1647

what happens when the definition of incest changes over time? which is what is driving this issue.

That particular point is very important. Social and scientific views quite obviously change over time. However, the Word of God is eternal and immutable. The WCF was designed and intended to be faithful to Scripture, not science or society. Where science necessitates a change in view that does not contradict Scripture, then such a change would be permissible. However, the impetus for change should always first be evaluation in light if Scripture itself.

One of the most significant changes to the WCF in the Presbyterian Church occurred right across town from the Constitutional Convention in Philadelphia. While the framers were drawing up a pluralistic design for government, the church was removing certain stipulations in the confession related to government so as to avoid a crisis of conscience among the churches in the new country being formed. To debate whether or not the church should have done so is a separate matter (I question whether or not they should have), but the point is that you have a modification to the Confession that was based not upon Scriptural impetus but upon social expediency.

the issue remains: if i were a widower could i marry my dead wife's sister? in the PCA but not in the churches which use the WCF 1647.
so has the WCF been amended or not?
effectively, by adoption of different version and by the introduction of taking scruples in 1729. however neither revisions, nor amendments, nor scruples, nor exceptions were written back into the confession itself. thus every other issue that embarks down that path ends up being a discussion about scruples and subscription types/strength.

Exactly.

Consider this: the London Baptist Confession is in large part word-for-word the same as the WCF. However, it differs in many key areas, to the extent that it was formally drawn up as a separate confession. IOW, they didn't amend the WCF, the simply rewrote it. The churches are doing this on a smaller, informal scale when they make modifications to the original WCF as the creedal standard of their church.

 

[rmwilliamsll]

thank you for the excellent response.

your big point is:
That particular point is very important. Social and scientific views quite obviously change over time. However, the Word of God is eternal and immutable. The WCF was designed and intended to be faithful to Scripture, not science or society. Where science necessitates a change in view that does not contradict Scripture, then such a change would be permissible. However, the impetus for change should always first be evaluation in light if Scripture itself.


under what impetus the pressure for the change occurs. thanks i will give that some thought ....

ok

the problem is that Scripture itself is fixed, but the interpretation of it is not. nor can it be.
Let's accept that discussion of changes to the WCF can be initiated by theological change only.

The problem is that the confession itself is first a political document, called by a political organization for political purposes, the unity of Great Britain. The various divergent religious views are in general accommodated so that the controversial elements could get past the whole group. Therefore things were not originally intiated by religious needs but political unification ones. (like the Nicean creed, unlike the Apostles which was a baptism confession, probably)

but that doesn't get to the heart of the problem, a changing interpretation of a fixed canon over time due to a changing social culture. In particular, if a significant minority of the church begin to disbelieve a crucial element of the confession and its underlying Scripture texts, how does this minority begin a discussion to alter the Confession, if the Confession is unalterable, despite being altered in the past.

It is just under a hundred years ago that GA had 3 different cases on men marrying their dead wife's sister and each case was handled differently due to the various situations. Now this phrase is gone from the OPC and PCA versions of the Confession, i don't know how the 1647 adhering denominations currently handle the situations. Yet they were burning issues in a day when GA was far more important and a significant expenditure than it is now.

The WCF was never designed to be amended.

was it designed to be subscribed to? by the whole church or just elders?
why didn't subscription standards get into the document?
was the intention to be used as a confession with an eye to 350 years later?
where there discussions of amendment routes? and just not get in?
or was it an oversight like the amendment process for the US Constitution was?
is there a good book to read that answers these kinds of questions?

 

[HamletsChoice]

thank you for the excellent response.

your big point is:
That particular point is very important. Social and scientific views quite obviously change over time. However, the Word of God is eternal and immutable. The WCF was designed and intended to be faithful to Scripture, not science or society. Where science necessitates a change in view that does not contradict Scripture, then such a change would be permissible. However, the impetus for change should always first be evaluation in light if Scripture itself.

Yeah, like how evolution changed and influenced the social and scientific views of Nazi Germany...Hitler didn't feel like they contradicted Scripture either....I guess we have evolved to know better now though....right?

 

[rmwilliamsll]

Yeah, like how evolution changed and influenced the social and scientific views of Nazi Germany...Hitler didn't feel like they contradicted Scripture either....I guess we have evolved to know better now though....right?

not Godwin's Law, not already, this is only message #27.
it is still possible to get constructive learning involved here.....

so i won't call it if no one else will. *grin*

 

[HamletsChoice]

not Godwin's Law, not already, this is only message #27.
it is still possible to get constructive learning involved here.....

so i won't call it if no one else will. *grin*

Hey, c'mon now I'm just observing Hitler's amendments....to Germany. After all he too was a TE who also saw the pressing need of educating the masses about the beauties of evolution and how the Master Race was "more evolved" than anyone else! I mean if he got "everyone" to believe then it all just hadda be right, right?

Ahhhh, the beauties of a mobocracy!!!

 

[Jon_]

It does not speak definitively to what "in the space of six days" means. Thus it is likely that one could hold to a figurative understanding of this issue and not be in contradiction to the Confession.

Except that the language of the Confession (4:1) and Catechism (Q9), is not figurative. The English word "day," barring figurative usage, means morning, day, evening, and night (i.e. a 24-hour day). There is no indication that the Divines considered anything else but a literal six 24-hour day period of creation as being an acceptable interpretation. This is just another example of reading modern science back into historical documents. Such argumentation begs the question.

Soli Deo Gloria

Jon

 

[Jon_]

ok.
where in the Confession is the word subscription?
what does it mean to subscribe?
what does it mean to take exceptions?

"Subscription" is not in the Confession. Its original intention was to be a statement of faith. It was only after it was written that it was used as a normative document of Christian doctrine.

I have already defined subscription as I understand it. Other congregations might define it differently.

To take exception can have several meanings. One is to disagree with the Confession altogether or with the majority of it. One is to disagree with parts of the Confession, but agree with the majority of it. Another is to disagree with even only a single point of the Confession. The final is to agree with the Confession, but disagree with the rationale provided (in law, this is called "minority rationale"). For instance, the Confession might cite such and such a verse in support of a particular doctrine, but you might disagree that that verse supports that doctrine, but nevertheless agree that the doctrine is correct, perhaps based on another verse, etc. This would be agreeing with the "spirit" of the Confession, but not the "letter," as we talked about before.

that is the very problem, the details of the issue are not part of the confession. the meta level of the discussion, how to discuss the issues, is itself not defined, but rather is the result of the church working out the problems over history.

it is that problem that makes all the issues that would be amendments to the confession over time always end up as discussions of subscription. even though the whole issue of subscription is itself not part of the document.

I think what you're really talking about now is church polity and governance rather than Confessional subscription. Part of Confessional subscription is to follow the Presbyterian form of government, especially as laid down in Chapter 31 of the Westminster Confession. Of course, if you're arguing with a detractor who takes exception to the chapter then you beg the question. At that point, it really becomes an issue of church polity and probably censure, i.e. this is the way the congregation is run; if you don't like it, too bad. In any case, the Confessional clearly states that it belongs to synods and councils to determine the standards by which the church is governed. This would obviously include the terms of subscription.

what happens when the definition of incest changes over time? which is what is driving this issue.

"Incest" is defined in the Bible and that is the definition used by the Confession. Every incestuous relationship is spelled out there. Surely you know the passage?

the issue remains: if i were a widower could i marry my dead wife's sister? in the PCA but not in the churches which use the WCF 1647.

I couldn't find the marriage of a wife's sister as being forbidden, so I would say yes, you could. The reverse is not forbidden (Mt. 22:25-28), so it would appear that it is permitted.

so has the WCF been amended or not?

It has not. It has served as the basis for other documents, but the Westminster Confession of Faith of 1647 has not been amended.

effectively, by adoption of different version and by the introduction of taking scruples in 1729. however neither revisions, nor amendments, nor scruples, nor exceptions were written back into the confession itself. thus every other issue that embarks down that path ends up being a discussion about scruples and subscription types/strength.

The Westminster Confession has never been amended. It is not a living document like the Constitution. The Constitution was intended to be amendable, so that it might be revised as needed throughout the course of American history. The Westminster Confession was never intended to be amended because it is a Confession, not a basis of government. The Westminster Confession lays out historic, orthodox Presbyterianism. Whereas the Constitution is amended to reflect current American government, the Confession is in nowise intended for the same task. Thus, when "changes" are made to the Confession, a new document is birthed: London Baptist Confession 1689, the Confession of Faith of the Presbyterian Church in America (1788), and other redrafts of the Westminster Confession.

What we're really talking about is church polity, and whether or not a congregation is justified in requiring a presbyter to subscribe to the standards of the congregation. This is obviously permitted under Chapter 31 of the Confession. While the explicit term "subscription" is not given there, the power to define and require subscription from presbyters is granted to synods and councils.

Soli Deo Gloria

Jon

 

[rmwilliamsll]

Its original intention was to be a statement of faith. It was only after it was written that it was used as a normative document of Christian doctrine.

The Westminster Confession has never been amended. It is not a living document like the Constitution.

where can i read more to follow up on these two points?

tia.

 

[Jon_]

Its original intention was to be a statement of faith. It was only after it was written that it was used as a normative document of Christian doctrine.

The Westminster Confession has never been amended. It is not a living document like the Constitution.

where can i read more to follow up on these two points?

tia.

That depends on precisely what you're looking for. A good volume on the history of the Westminster Assembly would be helpful to learn about the spirit and purpose of the Confession. Oh, yes, Schaff's Creeds of Christendom has much to say about the Assembly and the Confession. A commentary on the Confession might be of help, as well. I hear A.A. Hodge's comes highly recommended. I would definitely recommend a book on the Confession because I think a lot of the questions you are raising can be answered by a detailed study of the text and its implications.

As to the Confession never being amended, I'm not too sure you'd find a book about that particular topic. I always thought that it was quite clear that the Westminster Confession of 1647 has remained the same since it was written, but has since been succeeded by many additional documents.

If you're looking for texts on the Constitution, you can probably find a whole bookshelf on Constitutional Law at your local library. I'm not familiar enough with the literature to recommend anything in particular.

Soli Deo Gloria

Jon