And Furthermore...

Josh says that he is not quite where I am on everything I said in yesterday's "Saints" post, but he will be posting comments in order to clear that up and keep the discussion going.

To continue from yesterday, I'm moving into slightly more speculative territory for me.

I said yesterday that in any worship practice we ask the important question: "How good is this?"

What I want to point out today is that there is a proper methodology for coming to answers on such questions. And it's a related method to the proper way of coming to doctrinal conclusions.

What makes worship good? What makes anything good? These questions have been explored by philosophers at length, but two important answers stand out.

First, to be good any object or phenomena in the physical world must partake to a larger extent than not of some absolute or timeless virtue from the spiritual or nouminal world. That means that pure spiritual "good" has an existance of its own, and we or the things around us are only good to the extent that we have that original good in us. The good exists and has its immutable nature apart from us and now we take part in it. Of course the final existance of any virtue is in God's being.

Second, to be good something must be proper. That means that it must have characteristics that belong to the class of things which it claims or is intended to be a part of.

What beauties of the spiritual world must imbue our songs for them to qualify as "spiritual songs?" Likewise, what belongs to worship? What is proper to the Christian's approach to God?

Ladies and Gentlemen, we are a long way from understanding these questions fully and tracing them to their final answers.

But just as a new Christian is not expected to formulate the doctrine of the trinity on his own, but rather to submit to the formulation which the church agreed upon and has held since Athanasius, so he should not be expected to invent a whole new program of worship, especially not for the Church as a Body.

What I am saying is that there is an orthodoxy to worship just as there is to doctrine. It is not enough to "hold to" the creeds and confessions of the church catholic if we do not worship with her. Until we have obeyed, experienced, and understood the long-standing practices of the church in worship, we are not ready to add to that tradition.

I'm sure Josh will have more to say on this subject. Perhaps in another post sometime soon I will describe a liturgical service for those who are not sure exactly what is being discussed here. Meanwhile there are many other discussions of this topic even on the web that anyone can find and read for more information.