Thus, Barth was wrong. Whether natural theology is useful is irrelevant to the question of what the ultimate authority is for faith and practice. Sola Scriptura means (or is supposed to mean) that scripture is the ultimate authority, superior to individuals, churches, church councils, etc.
That generally derives mainly from a view closer to “the Bible [and I] are the only authorities”, and is not an accurate usage of Sola Scriptura.
Yes, Karl Barth was certainly wrong, but understandably so. Barth was German Swiss and during the rise of Nazism in 1930s Germany, he spent some time in Germany lecturing against the Nazi movement. Hitler had him deported back to Switzerland. Extremely troubled by the attempt of the Nazis to base Aryan superiority on science, Barth rejected Natural Theology and even broke off his friendship with fellow Swiss Natural theologian, Emil Brunner. Of course, the Nazis based their Aryan beliefs on junk science, but Barth was too wound up to appreciate that. In his defense, one might hope that Americans might share his scorn for Nazi ideology.
One cannot separate the I, (or we), from the doctrine of “Sola Scriptura”. That only exists as a sleight of hand involving a word game. As soon as we ask the question, “What does the Bible say?”, the “I” or “we” steps in.
The second generation of Lutheran theologians had a better understanding of the interaction of Biblical and Natural theology. At the Lutheran University of Tubingen, students were being educated to serve as either a pastor of a Lutheran church or a teacher in a Lutheran school. Both groups had the same education in theology and science. One of the most famous of Tubingen’s graduates was Johannes Kepler. He graduated with his M.A.and took up a teaching position in a Lutheran school. He adopted the position of Lutheran theologians of the time that “Astronomers are the priests of God interpreting the Book of Nature.” Copernicus’ theory of a Sun-centred cosmos was based on ancient Greek mythology. Kepler transformed it into a theory based on physics. However, more central to our discussion is Kepler’s claim that when the Bible appears to contradict science, we must amend our understanding of the Bible and see it in terms of different literary genres.
I believe you. God speaks to people. Absolutely! But he doesn’t speak to everyone in some loud voice from the sky so that everyone hears the same thing – that is what the Bible is for. But when it comes to speaking directly to people, they don’t hear the same thing at all. Then at most, it is only what they need to hear. And since there is no reasonable basis for expecting others to believe that this comes from God, it has no objective authority. Again, that is what the Bible is for.
No, what is absolute nonsense is how a lot of members of the church think they can speak for God and say everything better than God did.
I quite agree that interpretation cannot be avoided. Everyone who reads it will interpret it. But this saying that the Bible is only true if interpreted correctly are the words of those who think they can rewrite the Bible and take God’s place. I say no and BS to such people.
All this proves is how blunt and imperfect human language is. But this is still better than sinful people taking the place of God to rewrite the Bible for themselves, which is far too convenient for those seeking to use religion as a tool of power and thus an abomination to be reviled.
Well I quite agree this passage gives us cause to reject “Sola Scriptura” if it is taken to mean we should close our eyes, ears, and mind to everything God sends us from the earth and sky. But I certainly never said anything of the kind. I said scripture was… “the sole authority (given into human hands) on the Christian religion.” And there is nothing in nature which speaks to that topic at all.
It seems to me you have dug yourself into a hole. If the Bible is the sole authority on the Christian Faith, but those who interpret it are those who “rewrite the Bible for themselves” or have the Bible in “blunt and imperfect human language”, then it would appear that the Bible is inaccessible by humans.
But indeed Nature does address the Christian religion, or St Paul would not have drawn the attention of Christians to it in his letter to the church at Rome.
Only if the message of the Bible is agreed by all, and it is not. You only have to visit three different churches to get three different understandings.
The Bible is the start of faith but it cannot provide all the answers. That was never God’s intent.
And it is not a book of wise sayings, or instrutions or quotations.Or, worse, God in writtten form with ultimate authority.
Richard
That is just blind… (Insult excepted)
The only way anything can be an authority is if it is deemd correct on that subject.
Which is why Christ said
“call no one teacher”
Because once you have that authority you cannot be challenged.
There is no univesal view of all of Scripture. Therefore the can be no ultimate authority there. As soon as something is disputable or able to be viewed from at least two different angles you lose certainty, and therefore oose authortty.
Anyone claiming Soa Scriptura beleives that they have the only view possible and cannot be argued with.
Wrong!
Paul spend eight chapters arguing up the work of Christ and you take one verse and overuten or at east reinterpret the whole thing.
There is no Original Sin in Judaism and Paul was not only a Jew but a Pharisiee. You are claiming that he invneted a doctrine. And in doing so dismaissed his heritage. You only hae to read the next part of the letter to see the exact opposite.Paul was still a Jew. and he agonised over their lack of beleif in Chriist and hung onto the notion of a remenant that God would show, or allow to believe.
Both Jeremiah and Ezekiel quote from God that people will be judged by their own sin so Adam cannot be responsible. Humanity does not have the power to infect or corrupt all of Nature, although modern humanity is having a darn good try.
God is not so inept or powerless that He could nt forsee or even allow humanity to say no to Hhm and what that would mean. He gave us the choice. He cannot expect everyone to choose Huim, or to say yes. otherwise there is/was no choice.
And to puniish anyone who say no, is to deny the existence of that choice.
Richard
The biblical scriptures form the canon of the (pre-)catholic church, inluding what the early believers recognized as authoritative texts. From this viewpoint, the biblical scriptures include the core of the teachings of the apostles and the early church. Assuming that later doctrines should not be against these early teachings of the church, a comparison of what church leaders tell to what the biblical scriptures tell is a valid way to evaluate if the church leaders have stepped off the path set by the early church. In this sense, the ‘Sola Scriptura’ approach can be understood as the approach that is faithful to the teachings of the apostles.
Interpretation is indeed a central issue when we are dealing with the biblical scriptures. Very much rubbish has been claimed based on unjustified interpretation of the biblical scriptures. That is a challenge in all interpretations, including those made by church leaders.
Luckily, we have today more knowledge than ever. The factual basis of interpretations can be presented openly and others can evaluate how sound the interpretations are. If the church leaders can provide the interpretations that have the best factual support, then we should adopt those interpretations. Otherwise it is justifiable to criticize these interpretations and search for more truthful ones.
You are assuming that you fully understand what is being said in Scripture. There is no universal unsderstanding of Scriture so how can it be definitive?
Anyine declaring that a specific quote or verse , must mean X, Y, or Z is setting themselves as God.
IOW as long as there is any dispute over the understanding of Scripture it cannot be claimed to be either “perfect” or the ultimate Authrouty.
Even if it is the ultimate authoruty, we, as mere humans do not understand it fully or are capable of expressing it perfectly.
Richard
You forgot to read the rest of the comment, the part about interpretations.
I do not have perfect knowledge. If someone presents an interpretation that has good factual support and shows that my current interpretation is weak in this respect, I should abandon my interpretation and accept the interpretation with better factual support. I have done that, in minor and less minor questions, even changed denomination because of it.
I fully assume that some of my current interpretations may not represent the whole truth. That is one reason why I like to read the factual basis of alternative interpretations. It is not always easy to admit that what I have supported and claimed for years is not true. It may take some time to swallow that bitter truth. Yet, in the long run, it is better to accept the truth than to live in self-deception.
I am sorry, but you humility and self awareness doe not change the status of Scripture.The fact that you have had to change your views just proves the point. You have changed from one perfect truth to another?
Scripture is an amazing piece of writing. its truth is still being uuncovered and seems to change as culture and kowledge does, but what that means is that it cannot ever have a definitve truth or understanding needed to be the ultimate authority.
We hold scripture as holy, even sacrosanct but must defer to the fact that humanity is not capabe of understanding all that God is or requires, or even if He has specific requirements. Perhaps God’s view of freedom negates any sort of restriction or demand? Humans who do not seem to have a moral compass or accept what would seem to be obvious standards of morality? Arre they cursed? Are they children of the Devil? Or were they created, still in God’s (desired) image? Someone who feels that they were born n the wrong gender body? Are they ill? Are thet delusional? A Godly mistake? What right do we have to claim any or all of it? Scripture?
It is an unfortunatel fact that morality, Spirituaity even God is subject to our individual understanding and that must be unique to us and not part of some Glorious scheme or ordination of either God or the Devil. otherwise God becomes no better than the ancient Pantheons to whom humanity was just insiginificant playthings. (Which is the root of Judaims even now,)
I am not trying to impose anything onto you or claim that you are wrong to beleive what you do, but you must understand that what you beleive will be unique to you and may not migrate to anyone else.
Richard
Forgive me if I have not expressed myself accurately. My faith is secure, but is my faith and although I share it I do not impose it on anyone else.
Perhaps that is enough explanation for now. The morning service is about to start and that should be my focus for now.
Richard
I guess I could match them against Paul’scriteria, and maybe subconciousy i do. Howefer I wonder whether , if we are walking with God, whehterHis thoughts ever leave us? IOW why would I need to decide if a particular thought is from God or not?
As for any foundation for my faith? 80 odd years of experience?
Put it this way, those here who claim certain truths about humanity from Scripture have not seen or experienced what I have., and if that means Scripture is iether wrong or misunderstood then so be it. I refuse to be told what I must see in humanity by a bible basher.
Richard
No it just means the Bible is not the science textbook or instruction manual some make it out to be.
And the Bible addresses how to fix computers or Peter wouldn’t have written those epistles He did.
So… someone can only speak to a large number of people if everyone agrees what it means?
No. That is the dumbest argument I have ever heard.
The best authors write knowing full well that people will understand thing in many different ways and it is part of the reason they write as they do. Then some dumb fan asks “when you wrote this… did you intend to say…” The answer is often “no, I intended to say what I wrote. Such interpretations and speculations are your job as the reader and you are welcome to them.”
Agreed. Most of the time it is the questions that matter far more than the answers.
Also agreed. That is not what I said. I said it is the only authority given into human hands on the Christian religion. There is nothing absolute about that. I don’t think we are fit to have any more authority than that.
I agreed with everything except this, and, to be hinest I could not see how you got to it
A person speaking will have their own opinion / beleif regardless of anyone else, and willppresent things with his understanding in mind. A good speaker would be aware of any disagreements or contraversey and offer, or at least acknowledge those differences.
There seeem to be a notion that "preaching = indoctirnation or conversion, so that the aim is to get everyone to beleive what you do. (Something prevalent in this forum as well). As a preacher I can deny this. The aim is to expalain why you beleive what you do not to insist others do the same… if they agree, all well and good, if they disagree with a valid reason then who am I to claim that i am right and they are wrong.
(Validity,of course, is subjective and personal)
Richard
Incorrect. An example: the rabbis I knew in grad school all agreed that the Tanakh is absolutely authoritative, yet all agreed that if you ask three rabbis what a given passage means the likelihood was that you would get four different interpretations. Another example: in glaciology class, there was a groundbreaking article that everyone at a certain conference regarded as the authoritative work on a topic – yet no two papers presented about that article at that conference agreed on the implications.
Sorry, but that is a very shallow view of things.
You should take a half day and sit in a courtroom where cases take ten to fifteen minutes to deal with – all the attorneys agree that the law is authoritative, but they spend most of the time arguing what it means.
Nope. Read some actual theology from the ancient Fathers – they all accepted scripture as absolutely authoritative yet spent great amounts of time arguing over what it meant. Indeed if thy didn’t consider it authoritative they wouldn’t have bothered arguing about it.
Why are you dragging in Augustine’s erroneous interpretation? It has nothing to do with sola scriptura.
I wrote no such thing. You love to harp against Paul, even when it isn’t relevant.
Is it punishment when someone puts corn syrup in a car’s oil and the engine freezes up?
Is it punishment when a child plays with matches and gets burned?
Your position requires that humans be equal to God and that God is an arbitrary tyrant – a bit self-contradictory. You ignore that there are consequences to running our lives wrong, which requires that humans are on equal standing with God, then you treat God as cruel by willingly letting us suffer consequences and labeling it “punishment”. It seems you have a certain legalistic model in your head and won’t consider anything outside it.
And that is required by considering the scripture authoritative. If the scripture isn’t authoritative then there is no reason to bother discussing it! If scripture isn’t authoritative then Christ was wrong to say that it cannot be broken because anyone can dismiss whatever part they don’t like, calling it someone’s opinion.
I don’t think Richard’s view of authority can even exist with human language and its inherent limitations, it can apply only to math and possibly to scientific data, so I would say we aren’t able to “have any more authority than that”.
When a question like this is posed, responses appear in piecemeal fashion until it is not clear who is saying what, and more importantly, how their many quips fit together into a stream of logical thought. So I want to provide an overview that is commonly held by Biblical scholars today. Specifically, I want to begin with the Gospels.
First, lets begin with something more contemporary. Imagine you are responsible for the production of a mini-series. Maybe something like Game of Thrones. The production will require many scenes. Perhaps Scene 2 and Scene 7 need to be shot in Greenland. So some of the cast and the associated film crew are transported to Greenland and they shoot Scene 2. Scene 3 requires a medieval castle in France, so after shooting Scene 2, is the crew immediately transported to France? Of course not! After shooting Scene 2 in Greenland, the crew immediately shoot Scene 7 there, before leaving Greenland for some other location. The result is that many different scenes from different locations turn up for editing in the cutting room of the editors. The editors are then faced with the challenge of putting the many different scenes together. In the course of this editing, the editors realise, with the wisdom of retrospect, that some of the scenes don’t really fit into the storyline, and those scenes are left on the cutting room floor.
In a study of the Gospels, the rough equivalent of scenes are described as “pericopes”. Pericope is pronounced “pear-ick-oh-pea”, with the stress on the “ick”. These are the basic units in which the story of Jesus are transmitted. The Gospel authors are like the editors in the cutting room. They fit the pericopes together into the storyline. Sometimes they leave pericopes on the cutting room floor. If you don’t believe they would do this, take a look at John 20:30,
Jesus performed many other signs in the presence of his disciples, which are not recorded in this book. (John 20:30 NIV)
Obviously, the pericopes pre-dated the writing of the Gospels and the pericopes appear to have been transmitted in literary form, because they are often word-for-word in different Gospels. This differs from oral tradition in which words are updated and molded by the teller with each recounting. So how could we imagine a literary tradition recording individual pericopes before arriving at the cutting room of the Gospel authors?
Hegzer writes:
An assessment of Jewish education and literacy in the Hellenistic and early Roman period (300 BCE to 135 CE) is compounded by the sparseness of the available source material which can throw light on these issues. Almost all of the literary sources which mention schools and teachers stem from rabbinic documents, the earliest of which were edited around 200 CE
She notes that,
According to a tradition attributed to R. Yehudah in the name of the Babylonian amora Rav, a certain Yehoshua b. Gamla should be accredited with the dissemination of Torah knowledge in the Land of Israel. He allegedly “ordained that children’s teachers should be set up in each and every town and district and that [children] should be entered at [the age of] six or seven [years].
Nevertheless, Hegzer is sceptical.
However, we don’t need to depend upon literacy at such a minute level. As Christy has pointed out, St Paul acknowledges that he normally uses a scribe to write the letters that he dictates. (Galatians 6:11) So must have others. The picture of Jesus’ ministry in Galilee painted by the Gospels is of immense crowds coming to experience Jesus’ ministry of preaching, teaching and healing. Mark’s Gospel has people coming from across international borders. (Mark11:14) So great are the crowds that Jesus has to retreat onto a boat on the lake to speak to them all. Can we believe that, amongst these enormous crowds, there were at least some who were taking notes because they were literate enough to write? I think so.
Jesus’ own level of literacy does not even have to enter the equation. I have preached sermons and conducted church services that have been recorded both by audio and visual, without me knowing how to operate the machinery required. Such a requirement would have really slowed me down, and I think it would have been the same for Jesus.
This leaves us, then, in the cutting room, as the Gospel authors decide which pericopes to use and in what order to juxtapose them. Their sequencing of the pericopes will display their theology of Jesus and his mission. They will likely tweak the sequencing and even the wording. (In a later post I will speak about wording and languages.) One Gospel author may have a theology quite different from another – even at loggerheads with another. Through them we will experience the theologies of the very earliest church, and so this will become for some like me, a means of grace, and for others, the word of God. It is against this background that we have to assess claims like that of Sola Scriptura.
Although I find sympathy with the whole post, it is not me who needs to be convinced. Sola Scriptura is derived from a view of scripture which boils down to Scripture validating scripture, and it is self fulfilling along the lines of
Scripture is perfect therefore when it validates itself it proves it.
No matter how prgamatic we are about the gospel writers, their intents and the unique qualities of a “Gospel” as a litterary form, Sola Scriptura will ride roughshod over it because it claims God has ether guided or dictated the hands of the writers. Such a beleif is virtually impossible to overthrow.
This such an outrageous conclusion I am amazed you can even write it.
My view of religious autoerity comes from Scripture and Christ Himself. Once you set up anyone or anything as the ultimate authority you are undermiining God’s aithority. it is as simple as that. And by climing Scriture is God’s words (His authority) you are making a claim that Scrioture does not make for itself.
Back to all or nothing! You are not allowed to use your brain then,or have an notion of right and wrong. The proof of a doctrine is as much in how it portrays God or humanity as it is in where it comes from. You have basically claimed “ad himinem” to scripture.
Which fails on two counts.
First Christ was talking about prophetic Scripture not the Bible (which did not exist)
It relies on a perfect understanding of what Christ both said and meant by the person writing it down. (Sola Scriptura would compensate for that , of course)
Sola Scriptura is self fulfilling (see above)
You really should give up on alalogies, they may show what you mean but they do not reflect the actual situation.
You are comparing human stupidity or malice with God. Not a good idea.
It is not about choosing to harm yourself stupidity) either. it is about having a free choice with no “string” attached. if you successfully played with matches without getting burned would that make it OK.?
For instance. Just this week some kids set off fireworks in the local syuperstore. Unfortunately one got iinto a storage cupboard and ignited fluids in it… The current estimate is one million pounds to repair let alone the loss of earnings beiing shut for over two days. Regardless of the freedom of choice it resulted in disaster and damage that was unforseen by thoose doing it.
You are claiming a consequence for actions by people who are unaware of the consequences. Ignorance is not biss in this case, it is eternal torment! Very fair, I do not think.
It is not so simple as you are trying to make it. I suggest you leave it to God, who has the mental capacity to cope with such things. Instead you have set yourself up as judge, jury and executioner on God’s behalf.
Whether you said it or not is irrelevant. The doctrine derives from two verses extracted from Paul’s letters claiming that All of humanity was tainted by Adam’s sin.
it is nothing against Paul. I would suggest that he is turning in his grave over what people claim he wrote or meant.
But then, you must be right!. It is in Scriture, and your understanding of Scripture is perfect. (oops)
Richard
Nice one, Richard…
Of the below (just them)…
Wives be subject to your husbands
Women be quiet in church
Slaves obey your masters
…there has been a lot written…and we could “post” forever on them…you are doing approximately what you think Adam is doing but in another direction…If you want to discuss “one” of the above, it’s good…but you have listed lots of stuff and —what? sewing two plants together???..I foresee a computer jam coming…
“Let your conversation be always full of grace, seasoned with salt, so that you may know how to answer everyone.” -Colossians 4:6
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