jbernier

Oh, yes - soteriology. First off, I think that the verb "justified" should be dispensed from theological usages. Its meaning has changed since it was first use in the King James and it just does not have the meaning it used to have.

Either way, I think that the Catholic and Protestant traditions have been way too preoccupied with legal metaphors for salvation. Salvation, in these traditions, is understood as a change in legal status: I am presumed guilty until proven innocent - but will never be proved innocent for I am completely guilty; however, with the death and resurrection of Christ, I am now considered innocent - yet I am still guilty, God just does not see me that way. Really, this sort of salvation has nothing to do with the person who is saved - it is entirely a legal fiction that leaves that person essentially the same but just with a different label.

I much prefer the Eastern Orthodox notion of deification, which in turn is largely rooted in the writings of Origen (even though they denounced him as a heretic three centuries after he died). This is essentially a Christian Platonism in which salvation is not a legal justification but rather the process through which the human soul, driven by the grace of Christ, ascends to union with the Divine. It is a process of continuing imitation of Christ, in the sense that the ethics embodied in the Christ-story - particularly the notion that Christ, who had all power, voluntarily surrendered that power out of service to others - become one's own ethics. Thus salvation is not an either/or but the progressive willingness to put others' needs ahead of one's own, to say "I will not simply seek my own way but also work for the good of those around me." In this sense salvation and sanctification, so often separated in evangelical thought, are joined into a single process of continuing ethical development of the human person.

jbernier

I think that "(in)errancy" is not a legitimate category by which to evaluate scripture as it assumes that historical inaccuracies are errors. That only works if the writers intended to preserve perfectly accurate history.

Cross Examiner

jbernier,
1. I understand that you prefer to plead the fifth on historical matters but what best explains apostolic and patristic belief in the physical resurrection of Jesus of Nazareth? Since you are Anglican and theologically-adept I presume that you are also familiar with the works of N.T. Wright? If so, have you read Wright's 'The Resurrection of the Son of God'? If so, what your thoughts on his arguments therein?
2. So you do not like the term 'justification'. I take it then that you prefer the equally-Pauline soteriological phrase 'spiritual regeneration and transformation into the likeness of Christ' instead? If so, does man need to be regenerated and transformed?
3. Are justification and regeneration mutually exclusive soteriological terms? Can they not be complimentary? Can it not be the case that we are justified and regenerated?
4. You seem to imply that you believe that belief in the verity or falsity of any proposition (e.g. the sun will rise tomorrow) is always predicated on some degree of faith (what you call imagination?) and that faith is not bad, it is necessary. If so, then I concur.
5. You seem to imply that salvation is a process rather than an event, correct?
6. You seem to say that the errant/inerrant dichotomy is false when applied to the Bible considering the sort of literature the Bible contains. I've actually considered this. Do you believe that the biblical authors were inspired by God? Do you believe that the biblical authors (in the autographs) were inerrant with regards to intent?
7. Can the Bible be considered epistemologically authoritative if it is errant? How about if it is neither errant nor inerrant?
8. Is Jesus divine?

Regards,
BGic

Chili

I think that errancy is not a ligitimate category to evaluate scripture at all but at best is measure to evaluate our understanding of scripture. But regardless of that, if there is no salvation in the bible why is the question of errancy important? Are we not better off the put the good book down and see where salvation can be found?

jbernier

I am familiar with Wright. I am not a huge fan of his work. In particular I think that his committment to a supersessionist reading of Paul's writing is exegetically suspect. However, I have not read a significant amount of Wright.

The problem that historical Jesus scholars (if they are honest) face is that it does not appear that we have any eyewitness accounts of Jesus' life. This means that everything is at best secondary evidence - it is all "I know a guy who knew a guy who said that Jesus did X." As a historian of religion I have to evaluate the quality of my sources and the truth is that the gospel accounts, apostolic writings, patristic writings, etc., are suspect insofar as the possibility that they contain accurate history of the life of Jesus. That is why I think that understanding what these writers thought about Jesus and what that meant to them is so important - unlike Jesus' life we have primary evidence that speaks to these questions.

Now, the fact that this people believed in the physical resurrection of Jesus does not mean it happened. It also must be noted that a lot of writings from the first few centuries of Christianity were agnostic on the issue and some actually spoke directly against the notion of a physical resurrection. The early Christian witness is not undivided on this issue. It is only later, when "orthodoxy" becomes orthodox that these voices are largely silenced. Thus I think it possible to have a Christianity that is not dogmatically committed to the notion of a physical resurrection of Christ - after all, if an entity with such properties has existed in the past it can potentially exist in the present or future.

Now, does that mean that I reject the resurrection? Not necessarily. It is to say that my faith hinges much more on the continuing dialogues about God and the world which have taken place within the Christian community since the time of Jesus to now. The truth is that, if we were to find the body of Jesus in Jerusalem today my faith would suffer little. Change perhaps, as it would be more fully informed by the facts which the world has to present.

Not exactly what I said. I said that I think it a poor translation to capture what Paul is getting at when he uses the word. "Reconciliation" might be better.

I think that my previous comments on the Eastern Orthodox doctrine of deification should substantially answer those questions.

Imagination and faith are not necessarily the same; for instance I can imagine an unicorn but I have little faith in the reality of said imagining.

That having been said, I would argue that imagination comes into play for precisely those propositions that we are uncertain about or those things which we do not know for certain. It lies at the horizon between knowledge and unknowledge - the known and the unknown. Or, put otherwise, it is our speculation about and investigation into the content and form of the unknown. By this speculation and investigation we redraw the boundary between the known and unknown as well as between the possible and the impossible (which are perhaps little more than functions of the known and unknown).

Faith, then, can perhaps be best understood as that which looks at the imagination and says "This that I have imagined may or may not be real; however, I will live and think as if it were real for that has meaning for me. I might be wrong and, if so, that would suck. But I might also be right and, if so, my life will be enriched through the embracing of this possibility."

I have to say that I am largely making this up as I go along (more accurately, I am being forced to clearly articulate and coherently present ideas that have floating loose in my brain - which is precisely the point of this sort of dialogue, I think).

Substantially, although one must be careful not to do the Protestant leap of assuming that means salvation by works.

It depends upon what you mean by "inspired." I am inclined to say that at many times in history God interacts in particularly meaningful ways with God's people - of particular import for Christians this occurs in the incarnation of Jesus and at the Damascus Road encounter with Paul. Humans then reflect upon the implications of what they experience of God in these encounters. Are their reflections valid for all times and all places? No. Did they nail down everything perfectly and precisely? No. Did they, like any other human beings, mess up, get things wrong, make mistakes? Yep. Does making the scriptures more human make them any less divine? No, not if you take seriously the proposition that God became like the human so that the human might become like God.

Again, I think that the question assumes categories that are inappropriate to ask of the scriptural texts. However, if you are asking the standard "If the scripture is wrong on one detail how can it be trusted on anything?" the answer I would give is "If you are looking for absolute precision go into mathematics."

I think that the better question is not "How can it be authoritative if it gets things wrong?" but rather "Why are we so concerned with having an authoritative document that answers each question we may possibly have?" Can't we live like the rest of the world - not entirely sure about things, not always certain about what life is about, etc.? Why can't we learn from the sciences where uncertainty is built into the very workings of the scientific method? Heck, why did we need a canon in the first place?

Ah, and that last sentence hits the nail on the head. We have a canon because the believing community - through a very long series of debates and discussions - choose a certain set of books as particularly authoritative. But wait - does that not mean that the authority actually lies in the communities which sanction their use, not in the texts themselves. The scriptures have no epistemological authority for the Christian community aside from that which the Christian community grants it. Thus it is in the Christian community in which this authority lies.

This, btw, leads to the possibility of a radically democratic theology in which the Christian community which grants authority to the canon exercises its own authority to think about God without allowing its own instrument - the scriptures - dictate to it. Really, the scriptures are an implement of this community - however in inerrantist hermeneutics we have a situation in which the implement controls the user of said implement rather than the other way around.

8. Is Jesus divine?

I would give a qualified "Yes" - qualified in that I think one must be open to a wide range of interpretations of what this means.

Chili

No he's not. Christ is divine and Jesus needed to be crucified to set son of man (Christ) free here under the name of Barabbas.

funinspace

I would just add one thought to this idea. Some will claim that God lead the community to this conclusion/cannon. However, one is still back to the community declaring God's presence in the decision, and also declaring God's ending presence, thereby closing the cannon formation. So once again, we are back to the community being the authorizing/sanctioning agent.

DK

jbernier

Indeed. No matter how you stand - whether or not you think that anything which the Christian community said and says about God refers to any sort of ontological reality - you are left with the fact that everything we know about the Christian conception of God comes through people. Period. Any notion of epistemic authority within Chrisitanity must take their role into account.

Legion

There was really only one other interesting reply on the inerrancy side (not counting some back and forth discussion related to the issue), but that doesn't mean that it was convincing.

from here


Oh, and I couldn't help but laugh at the guy that said this about the biblical text:

He never came back after I pointed him to a discussion I'd started last year covering the transmission of the biblical texts.


Anyway, should we get anymore interesting replies, I'll let you know, but it doesn't seem many of our inerrantists have a reason for why we should assume inerrancy.

Cross Examiner

jbernier, I thank you for your responses. Sven, I'll answer your OP as promised earlier:
1. I do not assume biblical inerrancy. I hold to biblical inerrancy upon what I understand to be solid epistemic grounds (e.g. intuitional, evidential, rationalistic, and experiential corroboration, comparative analysis etc.). To go into detail about what makes for a solid epistemology is a very serious commitment.
2. I was raised on Biblical inerrancy, went away from it and then came back to it.
3. See 1.

Regards,
BGic