Monday, August 20, 2012

Say After Me, There is only one God, and ...

... the stool does not have three separate legs.

Craig Uffman points out the folly of thinking 'reason' reveals a different message to us from Scripture or tradition, just as God does not speak with tripartite tongue as first the Father says one thing, the Son something different and the Spirit yet the opposite. (H/T B Black)

11 comments:

Father Ron Smith said...

I quite like the idea of the Triune god at work at the dawn of Creation, in these terms:

The Father speaks the Word, carried by the Breath of the Holy Spirit - from Whom Creation came into being.

I don't know any Christian of my acquaintance who thinks other than that the Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit are One (in 3 Persons)

To think otherwise, one would imagine would be contrary to the provenance of the Scriptures. Now here is true orthodoxy!

Anonymous said...

Thanks for that link Peter,

It made me look again at the Virginia Report and how it expresses the relationship between Scripture, Tradition and Reason.


It seems to me that the Virginia Report was trying to strike a fine balance between maintaining the unity of God's truth and that same truth being able to be spoken afresh to every age and context.

However, to achieve this balance without baptising every fad and fashion the Report gives great weight to the idea of being in a real functioning communion with other churches: "It is essential for the fullest apprehension of truth that context is in dialogue with context."

Their conclusion is this: "In order to keep the Anglican Communion living as a dynamic community of faith, exploring and making relevant the understanding of the faith, structures for taking counsel and deciding are an essential part of the life of the Communion."

I myself have always been a little nervous about the Report's equating of Reason with the "mind" of the culture. It sounds too much like something Lenin might say. However my nervousness is alaid somewhat by the Report's emphasis on "structures".

On this reading, the Anglican Communion becomes a vital hermeneutical structure for keep Word and Spirit together.

So what does this mean for a church that has rejected the proposed Anglican Covenant - and has done so largely by insisting on its own autonomy?

I think it creates the very theological problem of which Craig Uffman speaks. It also threatens the very existence of the Anglican Communion as a coherent body of Christian witness.

Malcolm

liturgy said...

It's obvious this is a tripod, rather than a stool, as it's applied solely to one issue. If it was used consistently with the long list of other things these advocates have changed teachings on, then they really would have somewhere to sit. Good luck to anyone who tries to sit on what is left.

Blessings

Bosco

Anonymous said...

"It also threatens the very existence of the Anglican Communion as a coherent body of Christian witness."

That ship has already sailed. There are two distinct, different and irreconcialable religions within the Communion. Christian orthodoxy in a variety of "flavours", and Liberalism.

It is Liberalism which claims "reason" as a seperate source of revelation, one that is higher than the words of God Himself in Scripture. And this "reason" is very much the mind of the culture, or more accurately, one particular culture.

This is why people claiming to be followers of Jesus can happilly ignore his definition of marriage, or reject whole swaths of the Old Testament, because according to them "reason" has revealed higher truths.

The Church must re-affirm a commitement to Sola Scriptura, with tradition and reason as tools for Biblical interpretation, but not as seperate and/or equal sources of revelation.

While I supported the Covenant, it would not have solved this problem by itself. Liberalism is a cancer. It cannot be left in the body it infects, but must be excised completely.

Father Ron Smith said...

Shawn: "Liberalism is a cancer. It cannot be left in the body it infects, but must be excised completely"

Jesus: "They'll know you're my disciples by your love!"

Anonymous said...

Ron,

We are to love the good and hate evil.

Jesus also said...

"Whoever has my commandments and keeps them, he it is who loves me. And he who loves me will be loved by my Father, and I will love him and manifest myself to him.”

And...

“Beware of false prophets, who come to you in sheep’s clothing but inwardly are ravenous wolves."

Not to mention...

"But from the beginning of creation, ‘God made them male and female.’ Therefore a man shall leave his father and mother and hold fast to his wife, and the two shall become one flesh.’

Note that Jesus is very clear; God made them male and female, not male and male, or female and female.

It is important to take everything Jesus taught seriously. Not just the parts that suit you.

Father Ron Smith said...

"The Church must re-affirm a commitement to Sola Scriptura, with tradition and reason as tools for Biblical interpretation, but not as seperate and/or equal sources of revelation.' - Shawn -

Ah well, Shawn has Spoken!

Bang goes any historical/biblical criticism, bang goes redaction theory. And bang goes enlightenment on such issues as slavery, usury,
polygamy, misogny, the actual age of the cosmos, etc.

One wonders what St.John's College thinks of such antediluviansim in its very midst?

hogsters said...

Shawn: "Liberalism is a cancer. It cannot be left in the body it infects, but must be excised completely"

Ron's response: Jesus: "They'll know you're my disciples by your love!"

The old love card. Love that covers a multitude of sins, among them being selective in regards what we take from scripture, maybe even allowing culture to shape our belief and behavior as compared the teachings of Jesus. Jesus love i would argue does not cover that kind of sin.

We do love to quote 'you will know them by their love'. We love to quote 'for God so loved the world that he sent his only Son' etc. We don't so often like to take note of the verses that follow directly after John 3:16 .

To do so would be to take into consideration the thought that love is purposeful and has an aim. The aim being to save us. But then we would have to face the thought that we need saving.

Much easier to find fault with the bible and those who profess to take its teaching seriously, even the confronting bits.


Blessings



Anonymous said...

What a silly response Ron. You really should try actually reading Sola Scriptura theologians as this would clear up a great deal of your ignorance and rather bizarre notions.

Classical Sola Scriptura does not mean accepting slavery or polygamy.

This debate is severely hindered and constrained by your misunderstanding of Reformation doctrine.

Is it so difficult to properly understand a topic before forming opinions and conclusions?

Anonymous said...

Ron,

You might try Michael Horton's 'The Christian Faith: A Systematic Theology for Pilgrims on the Way'.

He is a Reforemed theologian firmly committed to Sola Scriptura.

You will note that he does not endorse slavery, polygamy, young earth creationism or for that matter a superficially literalist approach to Genesis 1 and 2.

Classical Sola Scriptura does not mean what you think it does, nor lead to the conclusions you assume.

It does however provide in part a useful firewall against the un-Biblical theological inventions of Liberalism.

MichaelA said...

I sympathise with Craig Uffman's position, but his argument seems a trifle contrived. He only speculates that +Sisk of TEC might be arguing that Christ and the Spirit offer contradictory revelations.

Wouldn't it have been simpler to take a clear statement by +Sisk that he disagreed with, and state why he disagrees with it?

Otherwise, this article amounts to no more than a statement that the spirit works in tandem with the son, a statement that I expect +Sisk does agree with, even though he and I would differ as to what it is that Spirit and Son say.