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There is no retracting God's shattered gifts to the soul. We must be healed or exist with the inward agony of the shards.
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9 comments:
How do I know I know always winds up as an issue of faith in something. It's not just that science doesn't provide the authority for a philosophical question, as that without authority science has no ability to say anything.
Definitely on the scale of more popular relativism (because very few people seem to have asked themselves how they know they know: they're pretty confident of their relativism), lack of authority is fundamental. We can't say something is right or wrong, we can't know what is true or false in religion, because we have thrown out all authority except ironically, that of science.
I think you are right. I also suspect it goes deeper. More than a throwing out of authority there's been a loss of it. I inherited a world in which there are few claims to credibility that I can trust without laboring over first and that's painful and unnatural.
The scriptures are a large part of the answer, of course. But as we are finding out that's not enough.
The canon itself depends largely on the authority of the catholic church, which I was not taught to respect.
And the interpretation of the scripture requires the lost ability to stand under various authorities, so what we have today is a hodge-podge of opinions, many plausible, many half-thought, many ridiculous - and no arbiter.
The problem is idolatrous epistemology that will not submit to God: and ecclestiacal authoritarianism is often such a form of idolatry.
Oh, I should add that on the subject of the canon, Ridderbos' Redemptive History and the New Testament Scriptures is remarkable: very similar conclusions are put in a more popular way by John R.W. Stott.
Epistomology that won't submit to God - well that's an easy answer. But how is God's authority mediated to us? We are still left with the same problems. I'll check into the books but I'm rather distrustful of reformed opinions on these matters.
Also, authoritarianism is as different from authority as feminism is from femininity.
Of course, authoritarianism and authority are different. So are a norma normans and a norma normata. But ultimately either something is self-authenticating, or there is no sure ground of knowledge. Hence the need for the internal testimony of the Holy Spirit.
I can't help with your distrust of the Reformed, of course; but I can assure you that Ridderbos is far and away beyond the more popular treatments you'll find in people like Sproul.
And yes, it is an intellectually easy answer to say we don't submit to God. Morally, it is rather a hard answer. But let us not forget that it was the serpent who cast doubt on what God had said. Gratitude is very simple; but it is the attitude of the believing heart.
Kamelda,
I love your statement: "It's not just that science doesn't provide the authority for a philosophical question, as that without authority science has no ability to say anything." Induction is logically dependent on deduction for authority. Our greatest apologetic weapon against atheism is not creation science, it is the sure foundation of logic; the world does not compute without God, no matter how old it is (or seems).
Alana,
I like what you said, but it is not the authority of the Roman church on which our acceptence of the Canon hangs, but the authority of the universal Church in the early times. I know you probably meant that, but I wanted to clarify.
Reuben,
The Authority of the Holy Spirit is unmatched by humans, as you say. The Spirit moves in the Church as well as in the individual. It is in the authority of the Spirit as He moves the Church that we rest on. The authority of the Church is the authority of God. Now, at this time, I believe that the authority of the Church is and has been both broad and very limited. Broad in the sense of determining the foundations of doctrine like the Canon, the Trinity, the Deity of Christ, and probably the liturgy (I have a lot to study here) and limited in the sense that it applies to relatively few issues, as the Church has been united in very few issues. Alana and I do not claim to be experts in this area however, so we are not dogmatic on the details of the authority of the Church. It is real, that much is certain.
Josh, I think the question boils down to two simple points. What is the norma normans, what is the final judge? And whose authority is self-authenticating? Westminster gives a very clear answer to these questions (and I think the only one that doesn't involve you in either self-contradiction or contradiction of Scripture, if the two can be distinguished):
IV. The authority of the Holy Scripture, for which it ought to be believed, and obeyed, depends not upon the testimony of any man, or Church; but wholly upon God (who is truth itself) the author thereof: and therefore it is to be received, because it is the Word of God.
V. We may be moved and induced by the testimony of the Church to an
high and reverent esteem of the Holy Scripture. And the eavenliness of the matter, the efficacy of the doctrine, the majesty of the style, the consent of all the parts, the scope of the whole (which is, to give all glory to God), the full discovery it makes of the only way of man's salvation, the many other incomparable excellencies, and the entire perfection thereof, are arguments whereby it does abundantly evidence itself to be the Word of God: yet notwithstanding, our full persuasion and assurance of
the infallible truth and divine authority thereof, is from the inward work of the Holy Spirit bearing witness by and with the Word in our hearts.
(...)
IX. The infallible rule of interpretation of Scripture is the Scripture itself: and therefore, when there is a question about the true and full sense of any Scripture (which is not manifold, but one), it must be searched and known by other places that speak more clearly.
X. The supreme judge by which all controversies of religion are to be
determined, and all decrees of councils, opinions of ancient writers, doctrines of men, and private spirits, are to be examined, and in whose sentence we are to rest, can be no other but the Holy Spirit speaking in the
Scripture.
(WCF 1.IV,V,IX,X)
To be sure the Spirit moves in the Church: but He has spoken in the Scriptures, and the fundamental difference must be maintained. Church authority is derivative (which is not the same thing as saying that it is "pretend".
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