Good and necessary consequences

George Gillespe (1613-48) was a leading Scottish member of the Westminster Assembly. He explained his view of good and necessary circumstances and how we should use reason in understanding the Bible.
"That necessary consequences from the written Word of God do sufficiently and strongly prove the consequences or conclusion, if theoretical, to be a certain divine truth which ought to be believed, and, if practical, to be a necessary duty which we are obliged unto, jure divino. This assertion must be neither so far enlarged as to comprehend the erroneous reasonings and consequences from Scripture which this or that man, or this or that church, apprehend and believe to be strong and necessary consequences … neither yet must it be so far contracted and straitened as the Arminians would have it, who admit no proofs from Scripture, but whether plain explicit texts, such consequences are nulli non obviae … the meaning of the assertion is not that human reason, drawing a consequence from Scripture, can be a ground of our belief or conscience … the consequence itself, is not believed or embraced by the strength of reason, but because it is the truth and will of God … ” George Gillespie Treatise of Miscellany Questions quoted in Leith, Assembly at Westminster John Knox, 1973, 82.
For an interesting article about Gillespe and others see John Fesko "The Puritan Theological Method".

Blogging the Confession 5 - hermeneutics

I’ve been looking forward to working on this installment of the WCF, since it is a chance to look at the principles of the Biblical hermeneutics in the confession.

The rest of the sections of this chapter deal with how we should read God authoritative and sufficient word. The most important theological assertion about hermeneutics is that the “inward illumination of the Spirit of God” is necessary for the saving understanding of Scripture (Section 5). The purpose of the Bible is to bring salvation (not simply to bring conversion but to lead the church in its pilgrimage) and it does this when the Spirit brings saving understanding. This is not a negative statement which portrays the Bible as an obscure book which can only be decoded by the enlightened few. Rather it is a positive statement that Spirit who inspired Scripture will lead his people to understand it. This confidence continues in section 7 which admits that there are parts of the Bible which are not easily understood but affirms that the central message of the Bible can be understood. It is sufficiently clear that the unlearned as well as the learned can grasp its message. The confession does not make this connection, but I think the implication is that the major obstacle to understanding the Bible is not its obscure or difficult message but spiritual deadness of the reader apart from the Spirit.

The framers of the Confession were confident in the clarity of the Bible under the work of the Spirit, but they were not naïve in their approach to interpreting the Bible. They recognised that readers did need to make use of ‘ordinary means’ (careful reading, using a knowledge of grammar and some awareness of the historical and literary context of Biblical texts). The church as a whole needs teachers who can study the Biblical text in its original languages for it is these which are immediately inspired and preserved by God. Today we are more aware of textual critical issues in the Bible than were the members of the Assembly; however we can agree that just as all we need to know from Scripture can be found “in some place of Scripture or other”, so no Confessional doctrine is dependent exclusively on dubious texts.

A further confessional principle of Biblical interpretation is expressed in section 5, that things which can be deduced from Scripture by good and necessary consequence are part of God’s counsel and have his authority. This assertion shows that the Assembly’s method was different to what we might call a more “biblicistic” approach. The most extreme version of this was Socinianism which would accept only doctrines which were explicit in Scripture and allowed no terms or concepts which were not in scripture. In contrast the Assembly was committed the normative authority of Scripture, but allowed that reason had a proper role in the understanding and exposition of Scripture. Rather than crowding this post with more material I’ll put up another post with an interesting quote from George Gillespie on ‘necessary consequences’. The section also allows that there are matters involved in the ordering of the church in which what we might call “common sense” should be applied.

Section 8 expresses two common Reformation hermenutical principles. One is that Scripture should be interpreted by Scripture. The flow of thought is that the Bible is God’s inspired word and so despite complexities and puzzles presents a unified message, which means that when the meaning of one passage is not clear we should expect other passages to illumine and explain it. The section also rejects the medieval tradition of allegorical interpretation of multiple senses of Scriptures and affirms that there is one sense. These hermenutical principles are an entry way into both Systematic Theology and Biblical Theology (but that would be the topic for another blog).

Section 8 affirms the need for translations. It expresses the Reformation view that the Bible belongs to the whole people of God and should be available to all in readable translations so they may be able to worship God and experience his care.

Blogging the Confession 4 - the sufficiency of Scripture

The first part of section 6 of chapter 1 of the WCF spells put the sufficiency of Scripture, one of the important implications of its authoritative inspiration. In the 17th century this was both a theological and a political point. The Reformed, and specially the English Puritans, were on their guard against attempts by Catholicism and Anglicanism to bind the Christian conscience to works and worship which were not found in Scripture. This was necessary both for God's glory in the church and to preserve Christian freedom. In response they insisted that since Scripture was God’s authoritative Word and was provided for the good of the church, then nothing more was needed and nothing more could be added without compromising the authority of Scripture.

The three texts given to support this claim do not, in themselves establish a full doctrine of the sufficiency of Scripture, however they reflect three themes which form the basis of the doctrine. 2 Timothy 3:15-17 describes the Scriptures as God’s fully adequate provision to lead to salvation in Christ and to train and teach for life; Gal 1:8-9 and 2 Thessalonians 2:2 point to the need to reject false claims of revelation

The texts were added by the assembly at the insistence of the English parliament. However a consideration of texts gives an insight into the method the Assembly held could be used to determine doctrine. That is what the next blog will look at.

Now Christian ethics just is counter-cultural

There was a time when Christians in the West felt that they shared much of the moral framework of the society. I guess most of us know that day is gone. The shift is not simply that Christians live differently to the surrounding culture. The whole way we think is different.

The latest edition of Bioedge highlights this with two different stories about abortion. The Australian story is about the bill being dealt with in the Victorian parliament. It would decriminalise arbortion and allow late-term abortions and  remove the right of a medical practitioner to exercise a conscientious objection to involvement in abortions. (I assume that means that an employer could refuse to employ a doctor who said she would not take part in those procedures, but I have not checked exactly how it would work).

Bioedge reports that the removal of the right to conscientious objection is advocated by Lesley Cannold a bioethecist who argues that pro-life doctors impose their views on mothers rather than helping them. She declares that "It is unconscionable for someone to defend the right to follow his conscience, then deny that very same right to someone else." In other words Cannold holds that for a doctor or nurse working in obstetrics to object to participating in abortions is unethical.

The parallel story is about commentary on  Sarah Palin the Republican V-P candidate in the US who chose not abort her son who has Down Syndrome. Dr Rahul K. Parikh has written in Salon saying positive things to say about Palin’s concern for a disabled child ("what she has chosen to do is fantastic") but also claiming that Palin’s decision oppresses women and is a “sign of her hypocrisy" (choosing to follow her conscience but denying others the same right). So again to oppose abortion, or at least to do that and to test for a disablity and make a choice to carry the child to birth, is unethical.

The Bioedge commentary on Cannold highlights the different conceptions of conscience in the two positions. Cannold believes that "The right to act according to the dictates of our conscience is founded in the value of autonomy. Autonomy means self-rule. An autonomous person is one who is free to direct her life according to her own values." Bioedge explains that this means that “conscience expresses an arbitrary, even irrational choice.” In contrast traditional accounts of conscience see it responding to some other reality, reason or evidence, or God.

The two views also differ in their take on how human life should flourish. Both would agree that for a child to have Down’s Syndrome is bad. The secular view tends to be that it is a dysfunction which brings too great a cost to the mother, family, and society (and perhaps to the child). The Christian sees it as an evil which should be borne and the child as an image bearer who should be nurtured and served, even at a great cost.

There is plenty more analysis that could be added on the question of abortion, but my point here is that Christian ethics is now counter-cultural all the way down. Not only do we make different decisions to our society on many issues, we have different accounts of the good and different ways of coming at moral reflection.

What are the implications of this for how we live in our society? I’m interested in your views.

By the way Bioedge is a great way to stay in touch with developments in bioethics in a very digestible way. You can see it here and subscribe for free if your interested.

Contextual mission or missional contextualisation or whatever you call it …

Mark Driscoll has recently been in Sydney and stirred plenty of discussion. Most discussion has  focussed on the 18 points which Tony Payne at solapanel described delightfully as "Mark Driscoll's 18 Theses nailed to the foreheads of the assembled Anglican leaders in Sydney". (In fact there were a scattering of others there as well as Anglicans, though not myself). You can see the report and read a summary here.

He says that we have to be 'missional' and 'contextual', and that is what I wanted to talk about and see if anyone out there (hello if you are the reader!) has a view and wants to keep talking.

On the one hand I am all for missional contextualisation. What I mean by that is we think and speak in the context of culture and society. Inevitably theology is shaped by who we are and where and when we live. I don't think we need to apologise for that or try to avoid it. We should admit it and enjoy it. The questions that press on us and the way we'll answer them are part of theology and preaching  and should be. As a theologian I take it as one of my exciting and solemn duties to help students develop ways to  speak faithfully about God to their world from Scripture  So not only should be we contextual, we are missional; we speak (and write and act) because we are part of what God is doing in his world. Once we've prayed "Your kingdom come on earth" we recognise the mission. So our contextualisation is not mere accommodation or compliance with the culture, it has to be redemptive and so will be subversive and counter-cultural.

So far, so good (for me, anyway).

My fear is that missional contextualisation is short-circuited. We read the Bible carefully against its own horizon and then move to express that in our context with our own horizon, but don't engage with how the church has understood and expressed the gospel and lived in the past. Older forms of thought and life are abandoned with apparent ease. Older forms of worship are judged not culturally relevant and simply  jettisoned.  I don't want to lock us into traditionalism at all, but I want to be part of a church which drinks deeply of the ways of the past, appreciates it, and keeps some and transforms some and leaves some, but thoughtfully.

I think that is why I find myself changing sides on the question of contextualisation. Some days I insist on it, but others it feels so shallow. When it is done well in conversation with the past I love it. When it is the thoughtless preference of the present for the past I find it sickening.

Am I on the right track? Are there better ways to analyse and address the issues? How do I as a theology teacher help students learn the tradition in depth, but still be ready to re-express the gospel?

Recognising the Scriptures: WCF #3

Sections 1-4 of Chapter 1 of the WCF lay out a view of what the Scriptures are: God’s inspired and authoritative word. In doing this they set the Scriptures in a wider account of God’s redemptive revelation and name the contents. All of this is quite ‘objective’. In Section 5 the Confession deals with the subjective question of how Christians come to recognise that the Scriptures are God’s authoritative word.

In the mid-17th century the key issue was how the authority of the church related to Scripture. The members of the Assembly made it clear that the church does not authorise Scripture, even though the church may direct us there. The substantive theological point comes at the end of the section, that the recognition of Scripture comes from the ministry of the Spirit through Scripture itself.

The need for the work of the Spirit is two-fold. One is that God’s word as the normative authority is authorized by God himself, as he speaks in his word. The other reason is that human sin means that we resist God’s authority and by nature reject God’s word. So in 10.1 effectual calling by the Spirit involves a change in the mind, heart and will of a believer and in 14.2 the grace of faith given by the Spirit means that “a Christian believes to be true whatsoever is revealed in the Word, for the authority of God Himself speaking therein”. This work of the Spirit leads to a recognition of the Bible, as the Bible is read and preached.

The picture is of the 1599 Geneva Bible, the preferred version of the Puritans.

This formulation reflects the emphasis of the Puritans on the importance of the individual conscience. The ground of a conviction of the divine authorship of Scripture is inner and personal. To us this might seem like a recipe for an irretrievable subjectivism. There certainly was a subjectivist stream in 17th century England – the Quakers would be the best known version of that. However the Reformed thinkers of Westminster were not of that ilk. In their view the reality of Scripture was an objective truth and the work of the Spirit was powerful and reliable (indeed irresistible). So while they realised that not all people came to the same conviction about Scripture (for not all had the Spirit) they expected that the Spirit would always lead believers to see the reality of Scripture.

The expression of the confession here does not have to mean people hear a single text of scripture and have an overwhelming conviction of its inspiration and authority, I’d explain it in terms of the later chapters which discuss the work of the Spirit. As the Spirit does his work of leading us to receive and rest on Christ for “for justification, sanctification, and eternal life” (14.2) we see that the Bible speaks of Christ and that he in turn directs us to the Scriptures.

In Reformed thought this section has been interpreted in two ways. One is to take the opening discussion of evidences as a positive statement about what the Spirit may use to lead us to an inner conviction. So Warfield wrote that “ ‘Abundant evidence’ one must suppose to be sufficient; and objectively it is sufficient and more than sufficient and this is what the Confession means to affirm. But, according to the Reformed theology, man needs something more than evidence, however abundant, to persuade and enable him to believe and obey God’s word; he needs the work of the Holy Spirit accompanying the Word …” (The Westminster Assembly and its Work, Baker, 1927, 211).

In contrast the presuppositionalists have treated the two sections as contrasting so that evidence and rational argument provides no basis for the Christian confidence in the Scripture. Wayne Spear argues that “ The Confession’s use of arguments for the divine authority of the Bible … does not indicate that rational argument is the necessary foundation for faith … Warfield’s apologetic method appears to depart from the position taken by the Confession. In principle Warfield holds that the evidences which will prove that Scripture is divinely inspired are valid according to the principles of universal human reason, prior to and apart from the regenerating work of the Spirit.” (“Word and Spirit in the Westminster Confession” 39-56 in L. Duncan (ed) The Westminster Confession into the 21st Century Mentor; 2003, 53).

This debate reflects two different epistemologies and is an important one. I find myself generally on the presuppositionalist side. However I don’t think that the Confession can really settle the dispute. Both evidentialist and presuppositionalist apologetics have developed in response to the scepticism and the enlightenment. In the 17th century Britains scepticism existed, but was still rare and the Enlightenment lay in the future. The WCF is not formulated to address the 19th century, let alone the 20th or 21st. There is room for both positions in this section, and we should have an ongoing healthy discussion about it.

Covenant Theology

Over at Multicultural Ministry Matters Kamal, one of our students, is blogging about covenant theology and offering a good defense to some of the common objections. It's worth a look.