Tag Archives: Augustine

02/2/21

“Unpunishable” is Unpalatable, Part 1

© Ilkin Quliyev | 123rf.com

Unpunishable, by Danny Silk, was biblically unpalatable to me. He sought to present Unpunishable as a biblical way to lead people in repentance, reconciliation and restoration. He opened with an example of a pastor who had committed adultery for the second time and was ultimately restored to his position of leadership within Bethel Church in Redding California. I would agree from Silk’s description of the first time the man committed adultery, that neither he nor the senior pastors of his first church seemed to handle the aftermath of his adultery in a way to lead him in repentance; and that his experience of it discouraged him from true reconciliation. But I don’t think this example of restoration was enough to accept the conclusion that what was wrong was the senior pastors were operating from a belief system called the punishment paradigm.

The core belief of the punishment paradigm was said to be shame-based: “My flaws and failure make me unworthy of love, belonging, and connection.” We believe we deserve disconnection and punishment, as does everyone else who has flaws and failures. This leads to individuals being motivated by the fear of punishment/disconnection, where their strategy becomes avoiding punishment by hiding or fitting in (false fruit); or by rebelling and refusing to comply with the “punishment.” The goal of the punishment paradigm was said to be self-preservation.

Silk said what was true about punishment was that it positioned you as opponents rather than partners in the discipline process. People were not empowered to clean up their mess. It produced shame and disconnection. Punishment distracted people from learning about the real consequences of their choices. “Instead, they only learn the fear of punishment.” As a consequence of his experiences with punishment, he was led to the belief that anyone who chose “the path of repentance, reconciliation, and restoration do not need to be punished.” This path would set them free from “the toxic punishment paradigm” and empower them to pursue a new belief system, identity, narrative, motivation, strategy and goal.

I don’t think that the consequence of “punishment” inescapably leads to opposition rather than partnership in the discipline process. The failure to repent of sin does. A person who was truly repentant of their sin would comply with what Silk described as punishment or discipline. It also seems that Silk’s view of punishment has the potential, in some instances, to shift responsibility from an unrepentant individual to the punishment paradigm. The “toxic punishment paradigm” is then responsible for the individual’s failure to repent, not the hardness of their heart.

As Silk moved into chapter three, he said: “The Bible shows us that the punishment paradigm isn’t some socially constructed, cultural phenomenon. It is a universal human experience with deep spiritual roots. In fact, this paradigm came to be at the very beginning, when humankind fell from God through sin.” Stop and notice what was said here. Silk is recasting the story of the Fall and original sin as the beginning of the punishment paradigm. This is the first of several examples of faulty theology and exegesis by Silk that distorts Scripture to fit his punishment paradigm.

The first error in his interpretation of Genesis 2 and 3 was when he conflated the meaning of “naked” ʿ(ārôm,) in Genesis 2:25 with “crafty” (ʿā∙rûm) in the next verse, 3:1. The Hebrew term for naked has a symbolic sense of exposure and vulnerability and is a different word than ʿā∙rûm, crafty. Frequently in Scripture ārôm has a symbolic sense of exposure and vulnerability, as when Isaiah walked “naked” to signify Egyptian prisoners being led away by the Assyrians (Isaiah 20:2-4) or when Saul lay naked and prophesied after the Spirit of God came upon him (1 Samuel 19:24). Nakedness is also associated with shame in Hebrew thought, as with the discovery of a drunken Noah by Ham (Genesis 9:22-23), but Genesis 2:25 clearly negates such an interpretation. Genesis 2:25 is making the point that Adam and Eve may have been naked (vulnerable), but they were not ashamed of it.

A similar term, êrōm, is used ten times in the OT to designate spiritual and physical nakedness. In Genesis 3, it refers to Adam and Eve after their sin (Genesis 3:7, 10, 11). More than just an awareness of their physical nakedness, Adam and Eve are also aware of their guilt before God—they had lost their innocence. “Their relationship with God was impaired, upsetting their relationship to each other.” In Ezekiel 16:7, 22, 29; 23:29 and Deuteronomy 12:29, ʿêrōm is used of the personified Jerusalem, suggesting both her material and spiritual poverty. Used in Ezekiel 18:7, 16 it indicates the proper social concern of righteousness in providing clothes for needy.

So, there is a subtle wordplay going on here in Genesis with the probable intent of reinforcing the meaning of what is being described. In Genesis 2:25 Adam and Eve were naked (ʿārôm) and not ashamed. The following verse, Genesis 3:1, reads: “Now the serpent was more crafty (ʿā∙rûm) than any other beast of the field that the LORD God had made.” Genesis 2:25 contrasts the naked innocence and vulnerability of Adam and Eve to the craftiness of the serpent in Genesis 3:1. As a result of the serpent’s craftiness, Adam and Eve sinned. Ironically, their first bit of newfound wisdom was to realize that they were naked (ʿêrōm) before God (3:7, 10, 11). The primary consequence to the Fall was the realization their relationship with God was impaired and their shame was for this consequence of their sin, not that they were physically naked. See “Nakedness in Genesis.”

Silk did get to a similar understanding of the consequences of the Fall, but then he inserted his sense of what happens with the punishment paradigm. He rightly said Adam and Eve’s sin led to their disconnection from God, one another and creation. But then he said this trauma led to the fear of disconnection: “This psychological and spiritual trauma left them feeling unprotected, powerless, and threatened, which in turn produced shame—the fear of disconnection.” The fear of punishment/disconnection is the “Motive” in Silk’s description of the Punishment Paradigm described above and illustrated in the chart on page 38 of Unpunishable.

Failing to see the intensification described by the wordplay of Adam and Eve naked (ʿārôm) and not ashamed, the serpent’s craftiness (ʿā∙rûm), which led to Adam and Eve’s sin and their realization they were naked (ʿêrōm) physically and spiritually before God led to another interpretive mistake. As Silk discussed how Adam and Eve responded to God after their sin, he said rightly that Adam and Eve’s fear of God was because of sin. But he wrongly said they fell into spiritual darkness (and couldn’t find their way back to God) as soon as their eyes were opened. They fell into spiritual darkness when they ate the fruit. As a consequence of their sin, they didn’t know how to repent and were not able reconcile or restore their relationship with God. It was to this reality that their eyes were opened.

Silk said Adam and Eve became locked in a false view of the universe and its Creator, “and it was this view that produced the fear of punishment in their hearts.” Trapped in this distorted reality, repentance and reconciliation—resubmitting to God’s authority and repairing the connection—seemed scary, impossible. According to Silk:

This was the catch-22 into which the enemy had drawn them—to step out from the covering of God’s authority, attempt to make their own rules, see this backfire spectacularly, and then find that their hearts were bound through shame and fear, to the addiction of continuing to try to make the rules apart from God, even though doing so would only produce more disconnection, shame and fear.

Silk said Adam and Eve reacted to this fear by hiding. “Instead of running to God to cover and protect them—and ultimately restore their shattered trust and connection—they made covering for themselves. They both agreed that self-protection was the way to go.”

This understanding of the consequences of the Fall fits with Silk’s punishment paradigm, but is not consistent with how the Fall has been viewed by the church since the time of Augustine. Silk appears to wrongly assume that before Christ, Adam and Eve could have, in principle, repented and reconciled with God, but their bondage “prevented them from finding their way back to God.” Without Christ, how could they find their way back to God? It is important to get a clear sense of the Fall and its impact on humanity. I think Silk’s imposition of his punishment paradigm on the text distorts it.

In his book The Enchiridion, Augustine described the four states of a Christian life. The first state is when he or she is sunk in the dark depths of ignorance, living according to the flesh, and undisturbed by conscience or reason. This was the human condition after the Fall: where we were not able not to sin (non posse non peccare). The second state comes when knowledge of sin comes through the law. Since the Spirit of God has not yet begun its aid, humanity was thwarted in its efforts to live according to the law. And being overcome by sin, became its slave (2 Peter 2:19). The effect produced by the knowledge of the law is that now they have the additional guilt of willful transgression of God’s law.

The third state comes when the Spirit of God begins to work within a person at salvation. Although there is still the old nature of flesh that fights against them (for their disease is not completely cured), they live “the life of the just by faith” in righteousness. That is, as long as they do not yield to their lusts and desires, and conquer them by the love of holiness. The one who by steadfast piety advances in this course shall attain the peace that shall be perfected after this life is over—the repose of the spirit. And they will achieve the resurrection of the body. This is the fourth state.  “Of these four different stages the first is before the law, the second is under the law, the third is under grace, and the fourth is in full and perfect peace.”

According to Augustine, this grace was not absent previously, but was veiled and hidden in harmony with the arrangements of the time. “For none, even of the just men of old, could find salvation apart from the faith of Christ; nor unless He had been known to them could their ministry have been used to convey prophecies concerning him to us, some more plain, and some more obscure.” With the help of a graphic representation adapted from a lecture by Richard Gaffin, we can illustrate Augustine’s fourfold state of humanity as follows:

Humanity before the Fall had the ability to sin or not sin. They were created in the image of God as self-conscious, free, responsible religious agents even with regard to sin. They were able to sin or not sin. This was before the Fall and before Augustine’s description of the four states.

After of the Fall, humanity could not help but sin. Original sin was now part of our nature and we were not able not to sin, the first state. With the knowledge of sin through the law, things got worse and we discovered just how sinful we could be. This is represented by the solid descending line. We experienced the truth of Romans 7:19, “For I do not do the good I want, but the evil I do not want is what I keep on doing.” This was the second state, where humanity had knowledge of the law of God, as well as their inability to achieve it under the law.

But Romans 7 does not end with a realization of hopelessness and powerlessness. Who will save us from this body of death? “Thanks be to God through Jesus Christ out Lord! So then, I myself serve the law of God with my mind, but with my flesh I serve the law of sin.”

As a result of the grace of Christ, we receive the gift of His Spirit and can begin to resist the pull of our old nature and strive to walk in righteousness, not yielding to the lusts and desires of the flesh. This is represented by the ascending dotted line and represents the third state. Progress up the line is progressive sanctification. Without the redemptive work of Christ, humans can in principle “be all they can be,” but they cannot transcend their fallen nature. This is represented by the solid ascending line.

The fourth state is reached after our redemption by Christ. The person who is steadfast in their piety advances up the dotted line, becoming more Christ-like. In the end we stand with the other sheep on Judgment Day and hear the Son of Man say: “Come, you who are blessed by my Father, inherit the kingdom prepared for you from the foundation of the world” (Matthew 25:34).

It is in this fourth state, when we are in full and perfect peace with Christ, that we will be truly unpunishable, as we will be unable to sin, non posse peccare.

Look soon for other sections of this article, “Unpunishable is Unpalatable” here: Part 2, Part 3, Part 4.

03/23/18

Origins of the New Testament Canon

fragment of the Muratorian canon in the Bibliotheca Ambrosiana library, Milan, Italy

In The Canon of the New Testament, Bruce Metzger commented how the history of the New Testament canon was a long, continuous process, rather than a series of sporadic events. Although church leaders and even Roman emperors organized councils and synods, during the early centuries of the Church, “the collection of New Testament books took place gradually over many years by the pressure of various kinds of circumstances and influences.” While this was one of the most vital developments in the early days of the Church, it took place almost as if it were an afterthought—with little comment on how, when, and by whom it was birthed. “Nothing is more amazing in the annals of the Christian church than the absence of detailed accounts of so significant a process.” Here is a short summary of how it happened.

The process of canonicity for the New Testament began in the early part of the second century and continued up to the fourth century, when ecumenical creeds, like the Creed of Nicea began to be formulated. Athanasius, who had attended the counsel of Nicea as a young priest, listed the 27 books of the NT canon for the first time in 367 in his “Thirty-Ninth Festal Epistle” as the bishop of Alexandria. Within this letter he said:

 . . . Again [after a list of the Old Testament books] it is not tedious to speak of the [books] of the New Testament. These are, the four Gospels, according to Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John. After these, the Acts of the Apostles and Epistles called Catholic, of the seven apostles: of James, one; of Peter, two; of John, three; after these, one of Jude. In addition, there are fourteen Epistles of Paul the apostle, written in this order: the first, to the Romans; then two to the Corinthians; after these, to the Galatians; next, to the Ephesians; then to the Philippians; then to the Colossians; after these, two of the Thessalonians; and that to the Hebrews; and again two to Timothy; one to Titus; and lastly, that to Philemon. And besides, the Revelation of John.

By 100 AD, all 27 books of the NT were in circulation; and the majority of the writings were in existence twenty to forty years before this. All but Hebrews, 2 Peter, James, 2 John, 3 John, Jude and Revelation were universally accepted, according to NT Scholar F. F. Bruce. He dates the four Gospels as follows: Mark (64 or 65 AD), Luke (before 70 AD, but after Paul’s two year detention in Rome around 60-62 AD), Matthew (shortly after 70 AD). John (90-100 AD). Dating the book of Acts should follow the dating for Luke, between 60/62 and 70 AD. The ten Pauline epistles were written before the end of his first Roman imprisonment as follows: Galatians (48); 1 and 2 Thessalonians (50); 1 and 2 Corinthians (54-56); Romans (57); Philippians, Colossians, Philemon, and Ephesians (around 60). The Pastoral Epistles contain signs of a later date than the other Pauline Epistles (63-65), perhaps during a second imprisonment around 65 AD, leading to his death.

New Testament scholar Donald Gutherie suggested the following dates for the remaining books left undated by Bruce: Hebrews (60-90 AD); 2 Peter (62-64); James (50); 2 John (90-100); 3 John (90-100); Jude (65-80); and Revelation (90-95).

The manuscript evidence for the New Testament documents is embarrassingly abundant. There are over 5,000 Greek manuscripts of the New Testament (in whole or in part) in existence. The best and most important ones date from around 350 AD: the Codex Vaticanus and the Codex Sinaiticus. Two other important early MSS are the Codex Alexandrinus (5th century AD) and the Codex Bezae (5th/6th century AD).

In contrast, for Caesar’s Gallic War, there are 9 or 10 good MSS; the oldest from 900 years after Caesar. The History of Thucydides (written 460-400 BC) and the History of Herodotus (written 488-428 BC) are known from about eight MSS, the earliest from 900 AD. “Yet no classical scholar would listen to an argument that Herodotus or Thucydides is in doubt because the earliest MSS of their works which are of any use to us are from over 1,300 years later than the originals.” The bottom line: the manuscripts for the New Testament documents are reliable. But how did they come together as canon?

There were several developments, influences and individuals who exerted pressure on the early Church to establish more precisely “which books were authoritative in matters of faith and practice” among the many that claimed to have that authority. The earliest list of New Testament books was drawn up by Marcion around 140 AD. See “Heresy, Canon and the Early Church, Part 2” for more on Marcion and the influence of his and other heresies on the developing NT canon.

Marcion only accepted the authority of the nine Pauline epistles to the churches and Philemon. He also removed and liberally edited any passages where Paul commented favorably on the Law or quoted the Old Testament. He only trusted one of the Gospels—Luke—yet again edited it heavily, removing most of the first four chapters. This was because he rejected the virgin birth of Jesus, as he believed that as a divine being, Jesus could not have been born of a woman.

One of the most important documents for the early history of the NT canon is the Muratorian Canon, named after its discoverer, the Italian historian and theological scholar, Ludovico Antonio Muratori. It composition is dated to the latter part of the second century. It is not a canon in the narrow sense of the term; it’s not a bare list of titles. Instead of just cataloguing the books accepted by the Church as authoritative, the Muratorian Canon gives a kind of introduction and commentary for each book.

It listed and discussed the four Gospels, the Book of Acts, thirteen Epistles of Paul: Corinthians (1 and 2), Ephesians, Philippians, Colossians, Galatians, Thessalonians (1 and 2), and Romans. Paul also wrote four Epistles to individuals from ‘personal affection,’ but they were later held to be sacred in the esteem of the Church “for the regulation of ecclesiastical discipline.” They were: Philemon, Titus and Timothy (1 and 2).

Next it mentions Jude and two Epistles of John. Speculation is that since the author had already mentioned the First Epistle of John in conjunction with the fourth Gospel, he only mentioned the two smaller ones here. Two apocalypses are mentioned, that of John and that of Peter—“though some of us are not willing that the latter should be read in church.” Books not mentioned include 1 and 2 Peter, James and the Epistle to the Hebrews.

Eusebius, the bishop of Caesarea around 314 AD, wrote and revised his work, Ecclesiastical History, several times during the first quarter of the fourth century. He placed the NT books into three categories: 1) those whose authority and authenticity were universally acknowledged; 2) those which all the witnesses were equally agreed in rejecting; and 3) those which were disputed books, yet familiar to most people in the church. In the first category were: the four Gospels, the Acts of the Apostles, the Pauline Epistles (in which he included Hebrews), 1 Peter and 1 John, and the Apocalypse of John. In the third category were: the Epistles of James, Jude, 2 Peter, and 2 and 3 John.

He added that he also felt compelled to list works that were cited by heretics “under the name of the apostles,” including: the gospels of Peter, Thomas, and Matthias, the Acts of Andrew and John. “The character of the style is at variance with apostolic usage, and both the thoughts and the purpose of the things that are related in them are so completely out of accord with true orthodoxy that they clearly show themselves to be the fictions of heretics.” These were to be cast aside as “absurd and impious.”

There seemed to be three essential criteria that had to be met for a document to be included in the NT canon: orthodoxy, apostolicity and consensus among the churches.

Orthodoxy was assessed by the “rule of faith” or the canon or rule of truth. Was a given document congruent with the basic Christian tradition recognized as normative by the Church? NT era writings with any claim to be authoritative were judged by the nature of their content. “A book that presents teachings deemed to be out of harmony with such tradition would exclude itself from consideration as authoritative Scripture.”

Apostolicity could mean having a close relationship with an apostle, like Mark with Peter and Luke with Paul—as well as direct apostleship—with John and Paul. With the writer of the Muratorian Canon there is a clear sense of the importance he placed on the qualifications of the NT authors as eyewitnesses or as careful historians.

The third test of authority was its continuous acceptance and usage by the Church. If a book had been accepted by many churches, over a long period of time, it was in a stronger position to be accepted as canon. Hebrews is a good example of this principle. Jerome wrote that it did not matter who the author of the book of Hebrews was, because it was the work of a church-writer and was constantly read in the churches. Augustine said the Christian reader: “will hold fast therefore to this measure in the canonical Scriptures, that he will prefer those that are received by all the Catholic Churches to those which some of them do not receive.”

By the time of Augustine (354-430) the NT canon, as it is given today in the Protestant Bible, was widely accepted. It was Augustine who declared the debate over the canon of Scripture was over. At a series of provincial synods, he voiced the following with regard to the closing of the canon: “Besides the canonical Scriptures, nothing shall be read in church under the name of the divine Scriptures.” In closing, we’ll look at his advice to the Christian reader of the sacred writings. In On Christian Learning, just before he listed the 27 books of the NT canon, he said:

The most skillful interpreter of the sacred writings, then, will be he who in the first place has read them all and retained them in his knowledge, if not yet with full understanding, still with such knowledge as reading gives,—those of them, at least, that are called canonical. For he will read the others with greater safety when built up in the belief of the truth, so that they will not take first possession of a weak mind, nor, cheating it with dangerous falsehoods and delusions, fill it with prejudices adverse to a sound understanding. Now, in regard to the canonical Scriptures, he must follow the judgment of the greater number of catholic churches; and among these, of course, a high place must be given to such as have been thought worthy to be the seat of an apostle and to receive epistles. Accordingly, among the canonical Scriptures he will judge according to the following standard: to prefer those that are received by all the catholic churches to those which some do not receive. Among those, again, which are not received by all, he will prefer such as have the sanction of the greater number and those of greater authority, to such as are held by the smaller number and those of less authority. If, however, he shall find that some books are held by the greater number of churches, and others by the churches of greater authority (though this is not a very likely thing to happen), I think that in such a case the authority on the two sides is to be looked upon as equal.

Information on the birth of the New Testament canon discussed here was taken primarily from The Canon of the New Testament by Bruce Metzger and The New Testament Documents: Are They Reliable? By F. F. Bruce. For more on the early creeds and heresies of the Christian church, see the link: “Early Creeds.”

03/11/16

Able to Sin

© jorisvo | 123rf.com

© jorisvo | 123rf.com

In the second book of his space trilogy, Perelandra, C.S. Lewis described how the Eden-like world of Venus was defended against an invading satanic character who attempted to get its “Adam and Eve” to disobey the clear command they had been given. Sound familiar? It is an alternative history, if you will, of the story of the Fall in Genesis. It raised an important question to me: What would have happened if Adam and Eve had successfully withstood the temptation in the Garden? Would that have been the end of the assault against them?

The answer to that question has to begin with what Reformed theologians like Anthony Hoekema call an understanding of the image of God in its “full biblical content. ” In other words, we need to consider human nature in the context of creation, fall and redemption.

In the beginning, before the Fall, Adam and Eve were “able not to sin.” This original imaging meant that Adam and Eve functioned sinlessly and obediently 1) in worshipping and serving God; 2) in loving and serving each other; and 3) in ruling and caring for creation. Although they were sinless in their original state, Adam and Eve “were not yet fully developed image-bearers of God.” There was still the possibility of sin; they were also “able to sin.”

This original condition was the boundary or the edge of the image of God; it was provisional and temporary. Adam and Eve were created in the image of God, but they were not yet a finished product. Herman Bavinck said: “Adam . . . had the posse non peccare [able not to sin] but not yet the non posse peccare [not able to sin]. He still lived in the possibility of sin.” Adam could either “pass over into either a state of higher glory or into a fall into sin and death.”

Human beings created in the image of God are self-conscious, free, responsible, religious agents. They were made upright and holy, and would have continued as such if they had remained faithful to the demands upon them “by reason of God’s propriety in [them] and sovereignty over [them].” This state was one of “an intensified and concentrated probation.” According to John Murray, as long as they did not commit sin, they remained in possession of their original moral and religious status. If they had successfully withstood the time of probation, they would have left it behind forever.

This meant Adam and Eve were at the beginning of the road humanity was meant to travel, to use Herman Bavinck’s metaphor. Still ahead of them was both their Fall and Redemption in Christ. So we should understand the original state of human nature before the Fall as able to sin, able not to sin: posse peccare, posse non peccare. As a consequence of the Fall, we were not able not to sin: non posse non peccare.

Without the work of Christ, we would have remained in a state of total inability to avoid sin; eternally separated from God. But through the Redemptive work of Christ, we have the guaranteed gift of non posse peccare (not able to sin). Creation, Fall, Redemption. But our current state is one of “already, but not yet,” in that while Christ has already come with the promise and down payment of non posse peccare, He has not yet returned to fulfill that promise.

In a similar fashion, Augustine described the four states of a Christian’s life, beginning with that of non posse non peccare, not able not to sin. The first state is when he or she is sunk in the darkest depths of ignorance, living according to the flesh, and undisturbed by conscience or reason. The second state comes when knowledge of sin comes through the law. Since the Spirit of God has not yet begun its aid, humanity was thwarted in it efforts to live according to the law. And being overcome by sin, became its slave (2 Peter 2:19). The effect produced by the knowledge of the law is that now they have the additional guilt of willful transgression of God’s law.

The third state comes when the Spirit of God begins to work within a person. Although there is still the old nature of flesh that fights against them (for their disease is not completely cured), yet they live “the life of the just by faith,” and in righteousness as far as they do not yield to their lusts and desires, but conquer them by the love of holiness. The one who by steadfast piety advances in this course shall attain the peace that shall be perfected after this life is over—the repose of the spirit. And then they achieve the resurrection of the body. And this is the fourth state.  “Of these four different stages the first is before the law, the second is under the law, the third is under grace, and the fourth is in full and perfect peace.”

Drawing on a graphic representation of human nature from Richard Gaffin, we have the following:

GaffinHumanity before the Fall had the ability to sin or not sin. They were created in the image of God as self-conscious, free, responsible, religious agents even with regard to sin. After of the Fall they could not help but sin; it was now part of their nature.  Without the redemptive work of Christ, humans can “be all they can be,” but they cannot transcend their fallen nature.

Every intention of their heart is to do evil (Genesis 6:5). It seems to me that the consequence of death for disobeying God’s command was both a blessing and a curse. Without death from sin, humanity would have become devils—eternally existing as beings not able to not sin. But God’s plan was to send a Savior; someone who could save us from this body of sin and death: Jesus Christ (Romans 7:23-24). Through the finished work of Christ, we have the guarantee of the promised renewal of human nature when Christ comes again (Ephesians 1:13-14).

But what of our original questions? What if Adam and Eve had successfully withstood the temptation in the Garden? Would that have been the end of the assault against them?

Until they had received the gift of a new nature, one that was not able to sin, they would have continued to be vulnerable to temptation. And, I believe, continually assaulted. At some point, this probationary time for humanity would have ended with the coming of a Redeemer—someone who would save them from the ability to sin. Either way, God planned to save us from ourselves. So it would have been creation, ability to fall, redemption.

What would that redemption have looked like? We will never know in this state. Perhaps we will in the next. But what we do know is that we can trust God. In the alternative history of Pelandra, Lewis, speaking through the character of Ransom said:

 Whatever you do, He will make good of it. But not the good He had prepared for you if you had obeyed Him. That is lost for ever. The first King and first Mother of our world did the forbidden thing; and He brought good of it in the end. But what they did was not good; and what they lost we have not seen.

06/26/15

Christian, What Do You Believe?

© Kuna George | 123RF.com

© Kuna George | 123RF.com

One way or another, the Apostles’ Creed has been part of my worship life since I was a child. Growing up in a liturgical church, we recited it every Sunday. I made a commitment to Christ in another liturgically-minded denomination in my twenties and continued reciting it weekly. For a number of years, I recited it as part of my daily prayer time. The current church I am a member of recites it monthly on our communion Sunday. Parallel to my personal experience, the Apostles’ Creed has been part of the worship life of the church since it was young.

The Apostles’ Creed was used in church history much as the Roman Creed was in the time of the early church: as a baptismal confession; as an outline for teaching; as a summary of faith and belief; as an affirmation in worship; and as a guard against heresy. Ambrose and Augustine suggested the repetition of the Apostles’ Creed in daily devotions. Augustine said in his work, The Enchiridion:

For you have the Creed and the Lord’s Prayer. What can be briefer to hear or to read? What easier to commit to memory? When, as the result of sin, the human race was groaning under a heavy load of misery, and was in urgent need of the divine compassion, one of the prophets, anticipating the time of God’s grace, declared: “And it shall come to pass, that whosoever shall call on the name of the Lord shall be delivered.” Hence the Lord’s Prayer. But the apostle, when, for the purpose of commending this very grace, he had quoted this prophetic testimony, immediately added: “How then shall they call on Him in whom they have not believed?” Hence the Creed.

Martin Luther identified it as one of three binding summaries of belief. John Calvin divided his Institutes into four parts, corresponding to the Apostles’ Creed, which all Christians were familiar with.

For as the Creed consists of four parts, the first relating to God the Father, the second to the Son, the third to the Holy Spirit, and the fourth to the Church, so the author, in fulfillment of his task, divides his Institutes into four parts, corresponding to those of the Creed.

While each of the above noted uses can be identified at various points in church history, it seems to have been its growing use within the devotional and liturgical life of believers that eventually solidified its position as “the mature flower” of Western creedal development. The local variants of the older Roman Creed were increasingly laid aside in the worship and practice of local churches and replaced by the Apostles’ Creed. Thus the journey from the Roman Creed to the Apostles’ Creed is complex, woven together that of the historical documents and additional creeds of the first few centuries of the church.

The earliest evidence for the received text for the Apostles’ Creed or “T” is within the text of a Benedictine missionary manual written sometime between 710 and 724 AD. A comparison of the Roman Creed to the Apostles’ Creed calls for speculation that the additions were largely to address theological problems as the church confronted a series of heresies between the mid–second century and early eighth centuries. Such an understanding of its journey would draw upon the differences in a manner something like the following.

Roman Creed Apostles’ Creed
1. I believe in God the Father Almighty 1. I believe in God the Father Almighty [creator of Heaven and Earth]
2. And in Christ Jesus, his only Son, our Lord; 2. And in Jesus Christ, his only Son, our Lord;
3. Who was born by the Holy Ghost of the Virgin Mary; 3. Who was [conceived] by the Holy Spirit, born of the Virgin Mary;
4. Was crucified under Pontius Pilate and was buried; 4. [Suffered] under Pontius Pilate, was crucified [dead] and buried [ He descended to Hell (Hades)];
5. The third day he rose from the dead; 5. on the third day rose again from the dead;
6. He ascended into heaven; and sitteth on the right hand of the Father; 6. He ascended into heaven; and sits at the right hand of [God] the Father [Almighty];
7. From thence he shall come to judge the quick and the dead. 7. From thence he will come to judge the living and the dead.
8. And the Holy Ghost; 8. [I believe] in the Holy Spirit;
9. The Holy Church; 9. The Holy [Catholic] Church [The communion of saints];
10. The forgiveness of sins; 10. The forgiveness of sins;
11. The resurrection of the body (flesh). 11. The resurrection of the body (flesh);
12. [And eternal life] Amen.

Beginning with the Roman Creed, we see that it contains the Trinitarian formula of Father, Son, and Holy Spirit; and confesses belief in the life, death, and resurrection of Jesus Christ.

The addition of  the phrase “Creator of Heaven and Earth” in the Apostles’ Creed to the first article of the Roman Creed rejects the Gnostic belief that creation was the act of a demiurge Christ; and the Manichean dogma that all matter was intrinsically evil.  The addition to article 3 that Jesus Christ was: “[conceived] by the Holy Ghost, born of the Virgin Mary” explicitly excluded the Ebionite denial in the virgin birth of Christ and the Monarchian denial that Jesus was conceived by the Holy Ghost.

The addition of “I believe” to article 8 adds clarity to the confession of believing in “Father, Son, and Holy Spirit” as God, countering the Modalistic or Monarchian conception of God. It seems the attempt to counter Modalism is within the specification in article 6 that the Father is “God Almighty.” The resurrection of the body in article 11 and the addition of article 12 countered Greek and Gnostic prejudice against the corporal body and specified an existence consistent with the “resurrection life” promised by Christ and distinctly different than the “eternal life” of the mystery cults.  Confessing the real birth, suffering, death (by crucifixion), and burial of Christ in articles 3 through 5 countered the Marcion and Docetic belief that such things were unworthy of the true Christ.

The additions of “Catholic” (meaning universal) and “the communion of saints” in article 9 may suggest an attempt to cope with the problem of unity in diversity within the early church. As distinct subcultures of theology and worship developed within the “catholic” church, there was a desire to acknowledge their legitimacy while attempting to exclude heresies, which also sought acceptance. As the body of Christ grew and diversified, the ears were denying they were a part of the body; the body was questioning the continuing function of the stomach. Despite the diversity within the church, if the “Head” of the creed in articles 1 through 8 was believed and confessed, there was a communion of saints within a universal church that existed beyond physical walls, geographic boundaries, theological particulars, and ultimately time itself. This acknowledgement of unity within diversity became an element of the rule of faith itself.

Unquestionably the Apostle’s Creed is a more detailed and theologically mature creedal statement of belief than the Roman Creed. However, it did not develop solely as a response to the various dogmatic concerns as noted above. There is also strong suggestive evidence that The Apostles’ Creed originated outside of Rome and was eventually accepted as the baptismal rite within the Roman church by the ninth century. Presuming the probability of this line of development, the church beyond the local reach of Rome was merely returning to her an enriched, improved statement of the same rule of faith, which she herself had compiled in the second century.

The Apostles’ Creed continues in modern times as the most widely accepted and used creed among Christians. All the individual articles noted above within it originated before the Nicene Creed was formulated—regardless of whether the final revision appeared as late as the early eighth century. And all the articles are in agreement with the New Testament and the teaching of the apostles. Phillip Schaff observed in his day that an attack on the Apostles’ Creed was also an indirect attack upon the New Testament. But he predicted that the Creed would outlive these assaults and continue in the life of the church, sharing in the victory of the Scriptures over all forms of unbelief.

This description of the Apostles’ Creed (and a previous one on the Roman Creed) was compiled from the New Dictionary of Theology (179-181), by Sinclair Ferguson and J. I. Packer; the Evangelical Dictionary of Theology (72–73), Walter A. Elwell, editor; The Emergence of the Catholic Tradition  (117), by Jaroslav Pelikan; Early Christian Creeds, by  J. N. D. Kelly; and The Creeds of Christendom, Volume 1, The History of the Creeds, by Phillip Schaff. For more on the early creeds and heresies of the Christian church, see the link: “Early Creeds.”

02/6/15

Turning to God in Repentance

In The Confessions, Augustine famously prayed as a young man of nineteen for God to grant him the gift of chastity, “but not yet.” Augustine said he was afraid that God would deliver him from lust too quickly, “which I desired to have satisfied rather than extinguished.” God “granted” his prayer and it wasn’t for another twelve years that Augustine finally converted to Christianity. In the meantime, he fathered a child by a mistress and spent a few years within the heretical sect of Manichaeism. What seems to have been missing for him at the time was a turning to God in true repentance.

In The Doctrine of Repentance, Thomas Watson said: “Repentance is a grace of God’s Spirit whereby a sinner is inwardly humbled and visibly reformed.”  He went on to discuss what he described as a recipe with six special ingredients for true repentance: 1) the sight of sin; 2) the sorrow for sin; 3) the confession of sin; 4) shame for sin; 5) hatred for sin; and 6) turning from sin. He warned that if any one of them was left out, “repentance loses its virtue.”

So far we’ve looked at the first three ingredients in “On the Road to True Repentance” and “Confession and True Repentance.”  We’ve also seen what Watson thought about “Counterfeit Repentance.” Here we will look at the last three ingredients, with special emphasis on turning from sin.

Watson said it was a great shame not to be ashamed of our sin. If the sins of the godly are mentioned at all on Judgment Day, it will not be to shame them, but to show the riches of God’s grace in pardoning them. Shame for sin is the shame of realizing we were like beasts when we sinned—dogs that returned to their vomit; or pigs wallowing in the mud after they were washed (2 Peter 2:22). “God’s image is defaced, reason is eclipsed, and conscience is stupefied.”

“A true penitent is a sin-loather.” Their spirit is set against it. They hate all sin, for “sin leaves a stain upon the soul.” If you love sin instead of hating it, you are far from repentance. “To the godly, sin is a thorn in the eye; to the wicked, it is a crown on the head.” Sin reaches our soul. By sin we have lost our innocence. Our hatred of sin should be infinitely greater than our love for it ever was. Clearly Augustine at nineteen did not hate lust more than he loved it. He also did not turn from it.

In true repentance, we recognize our sin; we sorrow for our sin; we confess our sin; we are ashamed of our sin; and we hate our sin. These then lead us to the final ingredient: turning from sin. The day we turn from sin, we must commit to a perpetual fast from sin—“Dying to sin is the life of repentance.” Turning from sin should be so visible, that others see it. It’s as if another soul has lodged in the same body.

Our turning must include our hearts—not just our behavior. “The heart is what the devil strives hardest for.” Every sin is to be abandoned; every lust is to be destroyed. “Someone who indulges one sin is a traitorous hypocrite.” An individual may restrain from sin out of fear or design, but a true penitent does so because of their love for God. If sin were not such bitter fruit, if death were not it consequence, “a gracious soul would forsake it out of love for God.”

Turning from sin means a turning to God. “Unsound hearts pretend to leave old sins, but they do not turn to God or embrace his service.” True turning from sin means there is no returning. Returning to sin gives the devil more power than before. “A true turning from sin means divorcing it, so as never to come near it any more.”

Some people are only half-turned—they turn in their judgment, but not in their practice. They acknowledge the power of sin over them, and even weep over it. But they are “so bewitched by it that they have no power to leave it.” In this sense, they are powerless over it; the corruption of their sin is stronger than their convictions. Others are half-turned when they turn from many sins, but remained unturned from some special sin.

“If we turn to God, he will turn to us. He will turn his anger from us, and turn his face to us. It was David’s prayer, “O turn to me, and have mercy upon me” (Ps. 86.16). Our turning will make God turn: “Turn to me, says the Lord, and I will turn to you” (Zech. 1.3). The one who was an enemy will turn to be our friend.”

It could be that at nineteen, Augustine was only half-turned from lust. Through the graciousness of God, he did not remain half-turned, but became one of the most learned and important of the church’s theologians. Within his Book of Meditations, he wrote a “Prayer for the Gift of Tears,” asking that God would take from him whatever “offends the eyes of Thy goodness.”  God alone can renew what is ruined and fallen. Augustine prayed that God would pour into his heart the fullness of His love, so that he would not think of or desire what was carnal or earthly. “But rather love Thee alone.”  This was a full turning to God.

11/14/14

Where Stephen Hawking and Augustine Agree

What, then, is time? If no one [asks] me, I know; if I wish to explain to him who asks, I know not. Yet I say with confidence, that I know that if nothing passed away, there would not be past time; and if nothing were coming, there would not be future time; and if nothing were, there would not be present time. (Augustine, Confessions, 11.14.17)

Citing the above passage from the Confessions of Augustine, Huw Price commented in Time’s Arrow and Archimedes’ Point that despite some notable advances in science and philosophy since the time of Augustine, “Time has retained this unusual dual nature.” It is simultaneously familiar and profoundly mysterious.

We live and move and have our being within the space and time of the creation. So when Scripture says in Genesis 1:1 that: “In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth,” it makes a statement of eternal truth that we have difficulty comprehending. How could there be a beginning to all things, including time? What did God do before the beginning?

These and other questions were put to early Christians in response to their insistence, from Genesis 1, that the world had a temporal beginning, that matter was created out of nothing, and that God created freely and not out of necessity. Widely accepted philosophical and religious ideas of the time believed in an eternal world that God shaped—but did not create—out of pre-existent matter. So opponents of Christianity often ridiculed elements of biblical creation that seemed questionable to them. Particularly that there was a beginning to all things, including time and matter. There were also similar “heretical currents” within the church. “Gnosticism, Marcionism, Manichiesm, and Priscillianism called for a theological explanation that would oppose any form of dualism” (Edmund Hill, On Genesis, John Rotelle, ed., p. 18).

Augustine, whose quote on time was given above, left the Manichee sect, and converted to Christianity in 386 AD. Over a period of thirty years, he wrote five commentaries on the biblical creation stories. His first Genesis work was to refute the teachings of the Manichees. In his later classic work, the Confessions, Augustine devoted the last three books to a commentary on Genesis 1. In yet another one of his Genesis commentaries, The Literal Meaning of Genesis, Augustine said that not only had he written against the Manichees to refute their ravings, but “also to prod them into looking for the Christian and evangelical faith in the writings which they hate.”

Just before the above opening quote from the Confessions, Augustine said: “Thou hast made all time; and before all times Thou art, nor in any time was there not time” (11.13.16). God created time, so the question of what God did before He made the heavens and the earth is nonsensical—because before the heavens and earth were created, there was no time. In On Genesis: A Refutation of the Manicheees (1.2.3), Augustine said: “God, after all, also made times, and that is why there were no times before he made any.” We cannot say there was a time when God had not yet made anything, because how could there be a time which God had not made, “seeing that he is the one who forges all times.”

Stephen Hawking disagrees with Augustine on the necessary existence of God. He said in an ABC interview about his book The Grand Design, you cannot prove that God does not exist. “But science makes God unnecessary. The laws of physics can explain the universe without the need for a creator.” Hawking suggested in his essay, “The Beginning of Time,” that despite the Big Bang, we don’t have to appeal “to something outside of the universe, to determine how the universe began.” Yet Hawking does agree that there was a beginning for both time and the universe: “The universe, and time itself, had a beginning in the Big Bang.”

In Hawking’s recent autobiography, “The Reason We Are Here,” he said: “To ask what happened before the beginning of the universe would thus become a meaningless question.” He also agreed that the universe was made out of nothing. Using the concept of imaginary time, a real scientific idea, he asserted that the beginning of the universe was governed by the laws of science and removed the age-old objection that the universe had a beginning, where the normal laws of physics broke down. “We had side-stepped the scientific and philosophical difficulty of time having a beginning by turning it into a direction in space. The no-boundary condition implies, that the universe will be spontaneously created out of nothing.”

So then for a beginning to time and creation ex nihilo, out of nothing, Hawking seems to agree with modern Christians and Augustine. But since the laws of physics can explain the universe without a creator, “science makes God unnecessary.”  Nevertheless, I think I’ll agree with Augustine on this last assertion, since even Stephen Hawking admits that you can’t prove that God doesn’t exist: “Thou, our God art the Creator of every creature.”