Some of the Concordant brethren who responded to my original post about Scripture, the Church, and Christ have offered further rebuttals. I do want to respond again, but since I don’t want to get bogged down in this debate, this will be my last word on the topic. I will move on to other related topics in the future, such as the orthodox doctrine of the Trinity.
Drew Costen
Drew expanded his blog post, “Some thoughts on Catholic and Orthodox views of Scripture,” to answer my earlier response. I’ll respond to what I think are his most important points, and pass over the parts where I think we just have no common ground for me to even answer (such as his response to my citation of Irenaeus about the unity of faith in the early Church).
As far as apparent contradictions in the Bible go when we read it as an inerrant whole, there have been lots of books and articles written over the years providing potential resolutions to basically all of them, and as long as we have even one possible resolution to any seeming contradiction that doesn’t contradict any other parts of Scripture in doing so, that’s enough to prove that the Bible at least probably doesn’t actually contradict itself (in its original languages in the original manuscripts, anyway). And since, again, if the Bible does have any actual contradictions, it can’t be the word of God or the authoritative basis of any theological claims, which once again means that nothing in it can be used to defend the authority of any of the so-called “orthodox” denominations of the Christian religion, and which again means that the authority of any of these denominations can only be assumed, with no foundational basis outside of that assumption itself.
I want to clarify my position, since I’m not sure I was clear about this before: I do not believe that the Scriptures have contradictions. My point in the other posts was that, apart from imposing a unifying framework upon the texts, there are certainly tensions / apparent contradictions between the texts. This should be self-evident if we look at how non-believers interpret the Scriptures – the “books and articles” that Drew mentions were all written by people who do presuppose a unifying framework, which is already the case when we consider the texts as Scripture.
The problem is, we need a basis for trusting this “church” you’re referring to (aka the Christian “church” in some form, which I don’t consider to be the church called the body of Christ, or even the church called the Israel of God, since its doctrines contradict both of these churches’ doctrines as taught in the Bible when it’s read consistently all the way through as the inerrant word of God) before we can trust that its so-called “canon of truth” is actually true, and if your claims about the Bible (that it does have errors in the form of contradictions in it when read consistently as an inerrant whole) are true, we can’t use the Bible as a basis for this “church’s” authority anyway, so all we can do is take their word for it that they’re an authoritative church created by God, and I see no reason whatsoever to believe their claim that it is has any truth to it at all...
One must have certain canon(s) of faith in order to interpret the Scriptures, and reconcile their apparent contradictions. Drew is taking the second part of my original post in isolation and wondering what reason I have to trust the early Church’s canon of faith, rather than the canons of faith of the Concordant sect (although he wouldn’t phrase it like that). But the second part of the argument can’t be isolated from the first part: the reason that the early Church’s canon of truth is the correct one for interpreting the Scriptures is because this is the Church that gave us the Scriptures (on which, see my response below to Aaron). If we reject the early Church’s canon of faith, and their very plausible claim that this canon is apostolic, then we lose our basis for accepting the New Testament Scriptures and the similar claim (made by the early Church) that they are apostolic.
By the way, like I said above, I don’t believe that the Bible has “contradictions in it when read consistently as an inerrant whole”. On the contrary, it’s precisely when we read the Scriptures “consistently as an inerrant whole” that we can see past the surface-level apparent contradictions, and discern the intent of the divine author.
ALLNGLKNV
Concordant Discord user “ALLNGLKNV” asks me the following question:
Andrew Simple question: even if one be not a Christian - if one treat the Bible as a compilation of fictional, fantastical stories - could one still coherently interpret it in a way that resolves all the contradictions contained therein?
Like, taking the view that the Bible is not the Word of God, merely a fictional but well-made and internally concordant text?
You could, since any apparent contradiction can be interpreted away. But you wouldn’t have a reason to do so unless you presupposed some unifying framework (like you said, “taking the view that the Bible is... [a] well-made and internally concordant text”). Then you would have to make some decisions about which ‘side’ of the tension / apparent contradiction is prioritized in your interpretation. (Everyone who reads the Scriptures as a unified whole does this, whether they realize it or not.) That is the role played by the “canon of faith” when interpreting Scripture.
Aaron Welch
Aaron also gave a further response on the Discord server, which I reproduce in part below. Once again, I’ll respond to the points that I think are more important, and ignore the parts that are mostly repetitive.
It seems to be Andrew’s belief that, in order for the Christian leaders of the late 4th century to have recognized and officially accepted the correct books that constitute the Greek Scriptures, they needed to be believers, and to have belonged to what Paul referred to as “the ecclesia of the living God, the pillar and base of the truth” (1 Tim. 3:15). According to this assumption, if the Christian leaders of the 4th century hadn’t been members of the “true Church,” we wouldn’t have gotten the canon-affirming outcome reflected in Athanasius’ list, and no one today could be justified in believing that we have a Bible with all the correct, inspired books.
However, I don’t think there’s any good reason to accept the validity of this assumption. We need not believe that Athanasius and other Christian leaders of the late 4th century were members of the same ecclesia referred to in 1 Tim. 3:15 in order to believe that these men were able to correctly identify all of the inspired books of Scripture, and accept as “canon” the books that Athanasius listed in his letter. It’s my understanding that the “canon-affirming” state of affairs reflected in Athanasius’ letter was historically determined by, and only happened because of, the apostolically-influenced circumstances of the 1st century (such that what took place in the late 4th century was inevitable given what took place in the 1st century).
What I think Andrew needs to demonstrate (but what I don’t think he has demonstrated) is that, if people didn’t belong to the “true Church” (due to not believing the most fundamental, essential truths that should characterize all who do belong to the “true Church”), they would’ve been unable to correctly identify which books are Scripture (and which aren’t), and that what took place near the end of the 4th century (i.e., a complete listing of the books of Scripture) couldn’t have happened if the kind of doctrinal apostasy that I believe happened during the post-apostolic era did happen. If he can’t demonstrate this, I don’t see why anyone should agree with him that what (to him) “seems arbitrary and inconsistent to accept” is, in fact, arbitrary and inconsistent.
The argument that I’m making is epistemological, like I said in my original post. The only reason that we have our present list of the books of Scripture is because the Church officially recognized these texts (and not others) as Scripture in the late 4th century, and passed them down across the centuries, which I think Aaron concedes. Unless we trust the discernment of the Church from the 2nd to 4th century and beyond, we have no reason to trust that those texts are actually Scripture. Even though the Scriptures are ontologically prior to the 4th-century (and modern) Church, that Church is epistemologically prior to the Scriptures, since we wouldn’t trust the Scriptures without her. As an analogy, Jesus Christ is the visible icon of the invisible Father: God the Father is ontologically prior to the Son, but the Son is epistemologically prior to the Father, since we could not know God apart from him.
Aaron tries to avoid this conclusion by claiming that the present list of Scriptural books was a foregone conclusion by the end of the 1st century. The 4th-century ‘apostate’ Church only recognized those texts (and not others) as Scripture because the 1st-century ‘apostolic’ Church recognized them (and not others). I don’t know how else to respond, other than to say that this is historically false. As I pointed out before (and see below), there were books that some in the pre-4th-century Church recognized as inspired which we now don’t, and there are some books that we recognize as inspired for which we have no evidence that anyone before the 3rd century recognized as inspired. (That’s not to say that no one did, but again, this argument is epistemological: we only rely on what we can know now.)
In fact, we have no evidence that anyone in the 1st century recognized any of the New Testament texts as inspired, rather than the authoritative (but not inspired) writings of the apostles. How do we know that the Corinthian community, or even Paul himself, believed that Paul’s letters to them were inspired by God in the same way that they believed the Hebrew Bible was inspired? Simply put, we don’t, so Aaron’s rebuttal fails on historical grounds.
Andrew’s appeal to certain non-canonical books does not support the claim with which he begins the above paragraph. The Shepherd of Hermas and the Apocalypse of Peter aren’t in the New Testament because, during the apostolic era of the 1st century, these 2nd century books were completely unknown to believers. Thus, unlike the writings of the apostles and their associates that were being read, copied and circulated both during and after the 1st century, neither the Shepherd of Hermas nor the Apocalypse of Peter were accepted as inspired/authoritative by believers during that time. And any works that weren’t known to be inspired/authoritative during the apostolic era of the 1st century were doomed to be rejected later. Conversely, I believe it was inevitable that those works that were recognized as inspired and authoritative during the apostolic era of the 1st century would be recognized by Athanasius and other Christian leaders of the 4th century as such (not because Athanasius and other Christian leaders of the 4th century were believers, but because of the historical circumstances themselves).
The fact that there was some debate/controversy regarding the status of the Shepherd of Hermas and the Apocalypse of Peter in the first few centuries following the apostolic era is perfectly consistent with the fact that it was due to their non-existence (and thus non-acceptance by believers) during the apostolic era that ultimately resulted in them not being listed by Athanasius and represented in the New Testament today. Athanasius’ list reflects a state of affairs that ultimately existed because of what was the case during the apostolic era.
Once again, my response will be epistemological: how do you know that, for example, the Apocalypse of Peter was unknown to 1st-century believers? After all, non-believing scholars today would make the same claim about 2 Peter on historical grounds! The only reason you believe that 2 Peter and not the Apocalypse of Peter is apostolic is because the Church ultimately accepted it as apostolic. (You can point to scholars who argue for 2 Peter’s apostolicity, but the only scholars who make this claim are those who are already committed to its apostolicity because they are Christian.) If the Church had accepted the Apocalypse of Peter instead (or in addition), then you would believe on the same grounds that it is apostolic. Hence, your beliefs about apostolicity still rest on the discernment of the Church, and the late 4th-century Church is still the standard by which you retroactively judge claims about Scripture from preceding centuries.
It seems to be Andrew’s understanding that, when I referred to “streams,” I had in mind “the true Church.” But that’s not what I had in mind. I was simply referring to people/communities who recognized/accepted as inspired/authoritative the books that are inspired/authoritative. While I do think that the earliest “streams” consisted exclusively of believers, I see no reason to think that the majority of people/communities who continued to recognize/accept as inspired/authoritative the books that are inspired/authoritative were also believers (or generally doctrinally sound).
Thanks for clarifying. I definitely was misunderstanding you about that. I still want to clarify that I don’t believe the late-4th-century Church pulled its list of Scriptural texts out of nowhere. This was definitely the result of a historical process which began in the 1st century and culminated (for the most part) in the late 4th century. The end of this process, however, definitely wasn’t a foregone conclusion in the late 1st century, and our acceptance of the Scriptures rests on the discernment of the 2nd to 4th century Church.
I think it’s interesting that we have far more historical evidence (and thus reason to believe) that the Christians of the 2nd century were premillennialists who believed that Christ’s second coming will follow (and put an end to) the reign of a man who will fulfill the scriptural prophecies concerning the Antichrist than we have historical evidence that these same 2nd century Christians held to some of the main doctrines promulgated by the Seven Ecumenical Councils.
I agree with that characterization and I don’t have a problem with it. Much like their list of Scriptural books, the pre-4th-century Church was quite vague and diverse about their doctrinal commitments (at least compared to the later Church). The Church’s understanding of true Scripture and true doctrine both began to crystallize around the same time, in the 4th century, when Roman persecution ended and the Church had strong (often state-enforced) unity for several centuries. Although I may not like the way in which this unity was sometimes enforced, I can’t deny that this Church is the only reason I believe in the Scriptures, and it would be inconsistent for me to also reject her doctrine.
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