From three netfriends (1) (2) (3)

(1)

Once again, thanks for taking my challenge seriously, and challenging me to keep thinking. I particularly appreciate his setting out of his argument in such a clear and systematic way. Ultimately though, I think his argument ends up just reinforcing my point, which is that if the Bible was really our sole authority for ethical decision making, we would have trouble demonstrating that homosexual practice was a significantly more pressing moral issue than blood-eating. I think his case, though well argued, gets worryingly thin at several points.

Firstly on his more general introduction, he wrote:

(2)

But one needs to keep in mind that what is being asserted is the claim that Scripture CORRECTLY INTERPRETED is the authority for Christian faith and practice.

(1)

Unfortunately, in practice, this amounts to the same relinquishing of scripture's objective authority that Murray was addressing under his other subject header. Once we acknowledge that it is the "correct interpretation", rather than some objective and routinely accessible plain meaning, that is authoritative, we are back in the same bind. Unless there is an objective authority by which we may determine whether or not we have scripture "correctly interpreted", then we are really no closer to having our hands on a source of verifiable objective truth.

(2)

One can only claim authority for a view if it actually corresponds to the teaching of Scripture - a fact monumentous in its ramifications for all our theology!

(1)

I would have thought that the doctrine of the Trinity was a pretty good example of the Church ascribing authority to a teaching that goes a long way beyond anything that you could deduce or demonstrate from the Bible alone.

Moving on to the detail of the argument about black pudding and homosexuality, I'll skip over points 1-6, because my misgivings about the attempt to divide general principles from specific commands and practices has already been addressed under the other subject header.

(2)

(7) Further three passages (at least) suggest that homosexuality is viewed "with suspicion" from a biblical perspective - Romans ch 1.; 1 Corinthians 6:9 and Leviticus 20:13 (here, the strength of the language - "an abomination" - and the severity of punishment suggest that homosexuality is no minor issue - on part with idolatory. But then "abomination" occurs in regard to dietary laws also...).

(1)

One of the weaknesses at this point has been acknowledged, and that is that it would be difficult to sustain the argument on either the relative strength of the language or the frequency of the references. While it is true that the New Testament references to blood-eating do not have the same severe language as the possible NT references to homosexual practice, there is still a problem there. The NT reference to blood-eating clearly has all blood-eating in view. None of the possible NT references have anything like that clarity of general application. They all use words which suggest particular forms of homosexual activity (all of which I would also denounce) and leave unanswered the question of whether they are intended to evoke a more generalised application. The one that goes closest to a generalisation is the passage in Romans 1, but even that falls well short of a simple generalisation. It speaks of people abandoning the sexual expression which comes naturally to them in favour of homosexual activity. Most gay people do not attest to having chosen homosexual practice against a form of sexual expression which came more naturally to them, and I would concur with Romans 1 that for straight people to engage in gay sex (and it's quite common) is perversion. I'm much less convinced that Romans 1 has anything to say to those whose sexual desires have always been homosexual. And even if it did, Romans 1 doesn't actually say that engagement in homosexual activity is a sin; it says that it is caused by God as a punishment for sin. Anyone game to preach that at face value?!! The only clearly generalised condemnations of homosexual activity in the Bible are the two in Leviticus and, as already noted, they are part of the purity code which sets out the distinctive practices which are to function as identity markers for a distinctive people, and which includes the dietary laws, clothing and haircut laws, and other sexual big issues like sleeping with a menstruating wife. Thus only a pretty tenuous argument could be advanced that the total teaching of scripture is any more suspicious of homosexuality than it is of blood-eating.

(2)

(8) Further passages of scripture suggests the curious notion that even a Christian (who is not under the law) is expected to live out the law (Romans 8:4 - for example).

(1)

Yes, but unless you are going to argue that it really only means it in terms of general principles, then you would have to apply it to blood-eating just as much as to homosexuality. And if you were going to say it is only about general principles, then while you could say that the Bible generally proscribes sexual immorality (and I'd agree with you), you'd still be left having to prove that every possible form of homosexual activity (including loving sexual intimacy within a faithful vowed covenant relationship) constituted sexual immorality.

(2)

(9) And, in any case, Paul says that the commands of the Law are "holy and just and good" (Romans 7:12 - so we cannot completely ignore the fact that the ethics of the OT code are positive in nature.

(1)

No, but again that applies to both our examples.

(2)

(10) Dietary laws have _specifically_ and _particularly_ been recinded in the NT (cf. 1 Corinthians 8:8)

(1)

This argument rests on an unjustifiable generalisation from specific instances. The dietary laws are not rescinded en masse. As I said in response to someone else, there are three categories of prohibited food (meat from prohibited animals, meat offered to idols, and blood or meat with the blood still in it)

and all had different reasons for their prohibition. Only two are rescinded in the New Testament, and the third, blood, is explicitly prohibited for Christians in the immediate aftermath of the rescinding of the first category.

New Testament Scripture, taken on its own terms, rescinds two categories of dietary prohibitions and reiterates a third. The prohibition on the eating of blood remains the unambiguous teaching of scripture. I don't regard that teaching as binding on us now, but I acknowledge that my reasons are not found in the Bible. I am using a modern scientific understanding of the relationship between blood and life to negate the ancient presupposition which apparently underpinned the aversion to eating blood, and I am using a scholarly reconstruction of the cultural and ecclesial context of the NT prohibition in order to give it a particular time and culture bound relevance while concluding that it was not transcultural and transgenerational. But those grounds for the conclusion that black pudding eating is not a problem are not available to those who want to argue that the Bible alone is the source of our moral guidance and that what the Bible teaches is all transcultural and transgenerational and not subject to the critique of post-biblical insights.

(2)

But I consider that it substantially answers your challange to show how (1) Scripture can be held up as teaching trans-cultural/trans-generational truth; and (2) one can consistently eat black pudding and repudiate homosexuality. Or, at least, I can't see an inconsistency in the above.

(1)

Neither can I. But there is a big difference between those who hold that "the Bible teaches trans-cultural/trans-generational truth" (I'm one of them), and those who hold that "everything the Bible teaches is trans-cultural/trans-generational truth" and therefore is normative for contemporary Christian practice. It is the latter group who I am challenging. Thus far it remains my conviction that the only reason that those who claim that the Bible's teachings alone set their ethical priorities, can regard homosexuality as a major issue and blood-eating as a non issue, is that their priorities are not being shaped by scripture alone at all, but but a cultural ethos which can be described as conservative or traditional family values. And, if I'm right, the influence of that non-biblical cultural ethos is all the more pervasive and overpowering because it is denied and therefore unexamined.

Thanks very much for pushing us to keep thinking. After all, good ministry practice is always going to be grounded in good communal and prayerful thinking.

And from another post (same players):

(1)

Thanks very much to ____ for his thoughtful response to my provocations. I am always grateful when people hold me to account for my lines of thinking and push me to more thoroughly examine whether my conclusions will really stand. However, I'm not yet ready to concede this debate. Surprise, surprise ;-)

In seeking to identify the flaw in the position he perceived me to be advocating, he wrote:

(2)

I think you wish to adocate that principles like justice, honesty, kindness, etc are more important than specific applications of such principles - such as regulations regarding food and sexual practices. and later General principles (honesty, kindness, fairness) are more important than specific practices (food laws, sexual morality, etc) for all people, at times and in all places. [incidentally, even if my assumptions (above) are in error, I can hardly imagine you wish to advocate that the premise just given is _false_?]

(1)

Actually, if I'm understanding this correctly, I think I do want to say it's false, or at least to say that I think it is an artificial distinction. I think that what you are saying (or believing I'm saying) would only be true if we are talking about the importance of these things for the development Christian thought. But if I'm reading you correctly, you are saying more than that (or believing that I'm saying more than that), and actually talking about their importance for the practice of Christian living. In which case it is a bit like asking which of theory and practice matter most. In practice, general principles have to be lived out as specific practices. For my own moral integrity, the specific things I do are just as important as the general principles I might be trying to express in them. If, however, you are only saying that for the purposes of our development of contemporary Christian ethics, the general principles expressed in Scripture are more directly useful than the specific applications for particular times and places described in Scripture, then I agree - I do think that.

(2)

That is to say, there is never any person for whom specific practices are more important than general principles (that is to say, for example, that sexual purity is never more important than justice, fairness, etc).

(1)

In as much as I can go with your distinction between general principles and specific practices, I would have to categorise "sexual purity" as a general principle. I believe all people should aim to be pure in their sexual expression. It is things like the law prohibiting sexual intimacy with a menstruating woman that I would regard as a specific practice which might fall short of being a transcultural transgenerational norm.

(2)

But now I put a simple question; does the Bible agree with the above premise or not? If it does, then clearly the Bible teaches trans-cultural/trans-generational truth

(1)

Of course it does, but that's not the point at issue here. I don't think I have ever suggested that the Bible doesn't teach transcultural transgenerational truth. Rather I have said that I don't think that everything that the Bible teaches is transcultural transgenerational truth. There are many issues on which I don't think the teaching of the Bible comes close to adequately reflecting the mind of God. While I don't wish to be so arrogant as to claim to know the mind of God better than the writers of scripture, I don't think I would arouse too much opposition in saying that the Bible's teaching on slavery does not adequately reflect God's abhorrence at such treatment of human beings. In practice, I think almost all Christians operate all the time with the presupposition that some of the things the Bible contains teachings about are not things about which we need to look to the Bible for a transcultural transgenerational truth. For example, throughout the Bible there are examples of laws or opinions on how people should wear their hair or beards (eg 1Cor 11 where Paul even thinks appropriate hair length is clearly taught by nature [sound familiar?!]), but I don't know any Christians who operate on the assumption that God has an objective transcultural transgenerational preferred hair style which can be determined by correctly interpreting scripture. I'm not raising the black pudding argument because I think black pudding matters; it is simply a good example of a clear biblical teaching, reaffirmed in the New Testament, which generally goes unnoticed and unthought about by most of the people who nevertheless claim that the clear teaching of scripture is the sole and sufficient basis of their ethical thinking.

(2)

If it does not, then any attempt to appeal to Scripture as an authority on any position whatever is open to strong objection. This is so even when it comes to the advocacy of values of the very sort mentioned above; honesty, kindness, fairness, etc because Scripture would not be the _source_ of such values, but merely an illustration of them.

(1)

Scripture is not the source of those values. The living God, made known to us most fully in Jesus Christ, is the source of those values. Scripture, as the primary witness to the self-revelatory acts of God, is an important source of our knowledge of those values, because in it we encounter the witness of our forebears in faith and the heritage of the solutions they arrived at in their endeavours to be true to their experience of the living God in their context. Unless we continue to converse with that witness in our endeavours to live out the faith, we will relinquish any right to claim that we stand in the same lineage of faith. Appealing to scripture as "an authority" is not in question. It is appealing to scripture as "the" authority on all things which I am saying is tantamount to treating it as the last will and testament of a dearly departed God.

(2)

The Bible would reduce to a sort "inspirational text" which has a pragmatic use not exceeding that of the Koran, the Book of Mormon, Shakespeare, _Mein Kampf_ or the local telephone directory. And then Scripture could not be said to be an _authority_ to which people ought to give assent.

(1)

I can't agree with that. However much we might believe that scripture is objectively true, we cannot prove it to be so. So, in practice, scripture's authority is the subjective opinion of the transgenerational communion of saints. Scripture is authoritative for us because the community of those who are being saved in Christ have always found it to be so and have chosen to ascribe authority to it, and so in responding to the call of Christ, we have committed ourselves to faithful membership of a community which holds that this book, like no other, must be constantly before us as an authoritative witness to the self-revelatory acts of God. We do not assent to its authority because we can prove objectively that it is more true than the Koran, but because we have identified ourselves with a community of faith which ascribes authority to it.

(2)

I think that the only response you can give to the above is to agree that Scripture is no authority, but that the basis of your position lies elsewhere - in the collective agreement of the people of God, in the leading of the Holy Spirit, in the working of human reason, in the traditions of the church, etc.

(1)

The authority ascribed to scripture is founded on precisely those things, and so to try to separate it from them is, in my opinion artificial. No one can prove that scripture is objectively authoritative. It becomes authoritative when we place ourselves under its authority. Even the existence of the Bible, let alone its function within the community of faith, is a product of the collective agreement of the people of God. Even if God had handed down hand-written manuscripts from heaven, the Bible would only exist and have any authority if a people had agreed to receive them, submit themselves to them, and hand them on to subsequent generations.

(2)

But (and this is to my mind critical) this leaves you no objection to those who base _their_ position on exactly the same foundation.

(1)

As is probably becoming all too apparent, I still manage to find grounds for debate! I seldom attempt to base an argument on a simple statement of "the Bible says" (unless I'm arguing about what the Bible says). In some cases, the arguments are over what is most demonstrably being faithfully built on the heritage of faith received from the Bible, the Apostles and the transgenerational Church. In other cases, and this homosexuality debate is a case in point, it is another step beyond that. It is an argument about the discernment of the quality of the fruits. As I've said before, the hermeneutic circle we all learned in college continues to be a crucial tool in faithful Christian decision making. We interpret - communally, studiously and prayerfully - what the faith we have received has to say about a given issue. We then act as faithfully as we can on the basis of our interpretation. And as we go we continue to ask what the resulting fruits indicate about the quality of the tree (interpretation and action) which is bearing them. There is always plenty of room for debate there. Sure, I have relinquished the possibility of a simple objective authority to prove myself right and others wrong, but so what? I don't need to find an objective basis on which to prove I'm right. I need a humble and prayerful relationship with the living Lord who will lead us into all truth. Our faith is a relational faith in a living God, not a lifetime subscription to an infallible document.

Peace and hope,

And from a third post:

(3)

Hi____. Allow me to respond to something you wrote below, and shift this discussion into a new context for some different exploration...

He wrote:

(2)

Perhaps the critical question then becomes which of two approaches one is actually taking; on the one hand, one might be attempting to recover that authoritative tradition from faulty exegetical approaches - a legitimate approach in my view. On the other hand, one could be claiming that "God is doing something new" and using us to bring that tradition into question - which might actually be true, but I think it unlikely and wouldn't really want to go there (and would, in my view, amount to exactly the sort of "wrongful use of the name of God" which Nathan has quite correctly objected to).

(3)

It seems that we human beings instinctively interpret the events of the present as though they were merely a natural extension of the past. We utilise familiar categories and ideas, and seek to incorporate what is new into the framework of the old. Whilst not wanting to make that process illegitimate, I'd like to suggest that it is only part of the story, and problematic when it comes to interpretive critiques. It seems that there are two stories unfolding in scripture: one which reflects the linear paradigm of past-present-future. Methinks we utilise this paradigm rather well. But there is another paradigm at work: that which comes to us from the future and invites us to be part of creating it. It is characterised in many ways in scripture: as the inbreaking kingdom, as eschatology, and as hope. We have traditionally accepted these in a passive sense - they are breaking in upon us. But the gospel call is to be part of living that creative future of justice, compassion and mercy, in the present.

Let me try to illustrate this, with the narrative at Caesarea-Philippi, when Jesus asks the disciples "Who do people (you) say that I am?" The response is given in historical terms - Jesus as an extension of what has already been revealed. The disciples make that ultimate connection, but are asked to refrain from declaring it so that Jesus can fill it out with meaning coming to them from the future. (Note: "he began to teach them that the Son of Man must suffer...") The interpretive present takes account of the historical revelation and the eschatological hope.

I like Moltmann's understanding of hope as that which calls us forward - not the "pie in the sky" hope, but the realised picture of a dream which thereby shapes the decisions that we make today. ("I choose this course because I want to embody the kingdom in this way").

In the discussions related to pudding et al, our entire interpretive analysis has been from the back, which is not to say it is illegitimate but that it is insufficient. God is always doing something new, which is not to say that he is doing something surprising, unless we spend our entire time looking backwards. God has given us a picture of the new - of his coming kingdom. That "new thing" invariably calls the tradition into question because that tradition often exhibits destructive characteristics. We are not called to go back to Eden, or to the book of Acts, but to move forward to the new creation... to Revelation. This is true both interpretively, and incarnationally.

To constrain the revelation of God to the past is to miss the greater purpose of God's involvement in the human story, in His own creation. While I share your nervousness about the "God is doing something new" paradigm as you articulate it, I don't think we can avoid embracing it as an essential part of the character and purpose of God, and therefore His church.

Cheers

~~~

And a rejoinder:

(2)

Hi (3),

The comment to which you refer is made partly in jest, partly in deadly earnest.

In theory I have no objection to the usefulness of extra-biblical speculations about life, the universe and everything. In fact, Nathan's probably right to say that such speculations impinge upon our biblical exegesis at every point and I'm not (generally) silly enough to ignore that particular fact.

In practice, however, I am somewhat skeptical as to how much legitimate use may be made of the findings of science or philosophy.

This is particularly so given that I know too much about science and/or philosophy to naively assume that their findings are objective, accurate or definitive.

If you allow a gross generalization, there are usually two sorts of people who cite scientific views;

The first are scientists who (like theologians) are often myopic and who (like theologians) often defend positions out of very human motivations which have nothing to do with truth or objectivity. What's more science (like theology) is a hugely specialized field and a person who is qualified in one field speaks as a virtual lay-man when they stray outside their recognized domain.

The second are lay-men who read popular texts which by their very nature simplify to the point of distortion. And when such texts are read by lay-men (which is everybody except the person who wrote the book) the reader undoubtedly gets a wrong idea of what was meant.

In other words, "science says..." is to me often a prelude to something which one ought to take with a very big grain of salt.

To add fuel to the fire (smile) I would also point out that my comments above refer solely to the physical sciences. When one moves over to the humanities and starts to speak about (say) psychology and human development, then I am even more cynical about the relevance of such speculation to theological discourse.

So, particularly with regard to issues of faith and its implications for living, my appeal to scientific or philosophical "conclusions" is tentative in the extreme. Nor do I give very much credence to such speculations when others introduce them.

Regards,