The Well of Questions

After about a month of not interacting with the Triablogers or Steve Hays, I have now actually finished my reply to his last response to me. I kept forgetting about replying, then attending to other people who I had interacted with less, then reading, then working… and somewhere throughout that time, I didn’t have a chance to finish my reply. But here it is…

Steve—

Sorry about the wait. Hope it didn’t bother you… you guys seem to keep busy so hopefully its not that big of a deal.

MG has responded to my reply:

http://woq.blogspot.com/2007/06/2nd-response-to-steve-hays.html

Once again, this thread is limited to MG.

“The only infallible authority in Orthodoxy is the Church as a whole.”

i) I didn’t refer to infallible authority, just authority. Some Orthodox are more authoritative than others due to their institutional standing.

ii) So you deny that ecumenical councils are infallible inasmuch as they only represent a tiny subset of the church as a whole?

iii) How do you survey the mind of the church as a whole? Or is this just an empty abstraction?

I will address this below.

“In this way, a ‘Protestant-like’ criteria of ‘who has the best interpretation’ could be used to adjudicate between conflicting claims by hierarchs to represent Orthodox teaching.”

So your ultimate fallback position is the Protestant right of private judgment?

It depends on what you mean by “ultimate”. Does it mean “bringing about the recognition/rejection of other criteria” or “the only criteria”? I’m saying the first, not the second. Also, saying that priate judgment is as a criteria should be used to adjudicate between the conflicting claims of hierarchs is actually very Orthodox. Think Maximus. He was using his private judgment to assess claims to authority and consistency with tradition.

“I am fine with having a Protestant epistemology operate in a certain sphere of inquiry (ie. establishing which organization accurately represents Christianity, adjudicating between conflicting interpretations of infallible doctrine). But if we find out that a certain organization accurately represents Christianity, namely Orthodoxy, then it would be appropriate to start operating with an Orthodox epistemology.”

This assumes that these are, in fact, compatible and supplementary theories of knowledge. But in case of conflict, which one takes precedence?

I’m not sure exactly how they would interplay. So far I haven’t really seen any major points where they conflict.

“Surely pre-enlightenment thinkers were concerned with certainty to some degree and had some desire for it. But I think we can both agree that the enlightenment emphasized it much more heavily.”

No, I don’t agree. What makes you think that Locke or Descartes was more concerned with certainty than Plato or Augustine or Aquinas?

The very way that Descartes and Locke go about their intellectual project seems somewhat different from earlier thinkers. In their most important texts their immediate focus is how to increase the quality of knowledge so that it is sufficiently certain to rebut skepticism. This assumes that the most immediate and important (initially at least) intellectual task they could do at the time was to establish certainty. Philosophy revolves around a problem of the strength of knowledge.

Compare this to Plato, Augustine, and Aquinas, who don’t spend nearly as much time initially in their central texts dealing with problems of skepticism and certainty. They are willing to begin their project without trying to fully and exhaustively work out an epistemology that has the goal of certainty.

There seems to be a different level of concern for certainty operating here in terms of when, how frequently, and to what extent certainty is considered important.

“How does ‘no qualification is mentioned’ imply ‘there are no qualifications?”

You have the burden of proof upended. The absence of any qualification doesn’t mean the onus lies on someone to disprove an implicit qualification, but on someone to prove an implicit qualification.

One route would be by appealing to people who have salvation but do not perform these signs. For instance the thief on the cross had salvation but did not perform these signs. Thus it seems that there is some kind of qualification to Mark 16:17-18.

“As it turns out many Orthodox clergy have been known to have such spiritual gifts. If you would like me to provide you with evidence of this, then please ask and I can give more details.”

i) There is nothing in the passage which limits its scope to the clergy. Indeed, that would be rather anachronistic in context.

ii) And even if there were, do your details include immunity to poison?

Regarding i) you’re probably right.

As for ii) I am not personally aware of cases of poison-immunity.

“Perhaps some people can realize it is God’s revelation by just reading it; but that doesn’t seem to be a sufficient grounding for biblical authority that can really bind all of our consciences.”

Why would an argument from experience need to be binding on those who have no such experience to be valid for those who are privy to it? It would still be binding on those who do have that experience. For the others, they might need another ground.

(I will address this below)

“And of course the Church couldn’t have canonized either of those texts, because they do not contain the content of Christian revelation or even worthwhile reading that can be read in Church to encourage Christians. Because God is a certain way and Jesus is a certain way, the Church could never accept books that are contrary to how God and Jesus are.”

How do you know what Christ is like apart from Scripture? So if Scripture is in no degree self-authenticating, then how does content place a bar on what is canonical or not?

I think the issue is “how would the early Christians know what Christ is like apart from Scripture?” and one way to answer this would be “Authoritative oral tradition and written tradition, as well as accurate oral and written tradition, could adjudicate false from true”

Content places a bar on what is canonical insofar as God does not reveal content which is contrary to His own divine revelation. Then there is an epistemological issue of “how would content place a bar on what is canonical for the fathers?” And although they could surely have epistemic access to truths about Christ through authoritative and/or accurate written and/or oral tradition, ultimately the explanation for why the specific canon that’s established is established will have to invoke the divine causality of the Holy Spirit.

“So one could argue, without assuming the authority of Scripture, that Jesus gave the Church infallibility.”

Even if that were the claim, it would be a fallible claim to a claim of infallibility. How does that improve on what you find deficient in the Protestant rule of faith?

I think you might be confusing authority with epistemology. When we epistemically act so as to recognize an authority, this is not the same as this authority being established *as* an authority. The fallibility of the source of knowledge is not the same as the fallibility or infallibility of the authority revealed in that source. More on this below.

Also, I consider it an improvement because the infallibility of the Church which establishes the infallibility of Scripture would be publicly-accessible. Instead of the infallibility of Scripture just being something revealed to individual’s hearts, it is public and therefore its claim to bind consciences rests on more than a mere “doesn’t your heart say so?” which is shaky ground because of how evil the human heart can be. It is in-principle and in-practice questionable.

Unless the Bible is in some degree self-authenticating, you cannot bootstrap your way from a fallible witness to an infallible witness. The testimony cannot rise above its source.

How would the Bible’s self-authentication improve this?

Also, it seems that you *can* bootstrap your way from a fallible witness to an infallible witness in a certain sense. This is because a fallible witness can recognize an infallible authority. The strength of our conviction that a locus of authority exists is not proportional to the degree of authority that the locus of authority actually possesses. We can be pretty sure that there are cops and school teachers; but that doesn’t imply that because we are confident that they exist, they therefore are more binding than, say, God. And we can have less confidence that God exists and still recognize that His commands are absolutely binding and supercede all obligation from cops and school teachers. This is a case of infallible witness “rising above” fallible witness; our fallible judgment that God exists and commands certain things entails a degree of obligation that is not directly proportional to our confidence that God exists.

But of course a fallible authority could not ground the authority of an infallible authority.

“The question then becomes how the early Christians understood the relationship between the apostles’ authority and gift of the Holy Spirit and the nature of the Church. Our best bet is to assume that what happened in the early Church accurately reflects the kind of authority the apostles had and the actual consequences of the gift of the Holy Spirit.”

Why is that our best bet? There were heretics in NT times, during the lifetime of the Apostles. A number of NT letters combat heresy in NT churches (when an apostle was away). So you need a more discriminating standard than antiquity.

And appeal to the early “Church” begs the question of which local churches were true churches or false churches. So, once again, you need a more discriminating standard.

Perhaps it is true that I need a more discriminating standard. This wouldn’t be impossible to construct, I suspect.

“We see the authority of the apostles exercised in Acts 15 with the apostolic decree. The early Christian Church understood its decrees as being divine revelation. Hence the statement ‘it seemed fit to the Holy Spirit and to us’ (Acts 15:28).”

This equivocates over the identity of the “early church.” In context, it refers to the Apostolic church, not the subapostolic church.

“So the early Church understood itself as founded on Christ and the apostles, and as having the power to decree things with divine authority.”

i) You’re oscillating between the authority of the apostles and the authority of the church. Prooftexts for one are not automatically transferable to the other. Your conclusion overreaches your supporting material—by a wide margin.

ii) It’s equally equivocal to invoke what Scripture says about the Church, then invert this into what the subapostolic church understood about itself. There’s a continual slippage in your argument.

Regarding i), I view the apostles and the hierarchy more generally as being representative of the entire Church. Insofar as they are representative they can stand in for and act on behalf of the entire Church. That’s part of the point of having a hierarchy: they act on behalf of the group they preside over.

And concerning ii), I’m not assuming the authority of Scripture to establish the Church. I’m just assuming it is somewhat historically accurate when I’m looking at what Jesus probably said about the Church and how this was understood by those who followed his tradition, and then concluding that Jesus probably taught the authority of the Church.

“This also coheres well with other Pauline statements about the Church revealing divine wisdom (Ephesians 3:9-10)”

That has no reference to divine teaching authority.

I definately grant that this probably cannot in itself establish the infallibility of the Church. However, the revelatory function of the Church as bearer, teacher, and enactor of the divine mystery seems implicit here. It doesn’t seem impossible, therefore, to see this as supporting ecclesial infallibility, or at least some kind of incarnational ecclesiology.

“And being the pillar and ground of truth (1 Timothy 3:15).”

In context, that’s a reference to a local church, not the universal church. And a reference to a NT local church during the lifetime of the apostles.

Would you be so kind as to argue for that?

Also, this verse could still give some weight to ecclesial infallibility even if it is referring to a local Church. This is because biblical ecclesiology includes the idea that a local Church is a full manifestation or extension of the whole Church. The evidence for this comes from the fact that

1. The local assembly is sometimes given the title of the whole, namely “Church”, without specified location. (Acts 20:28/Acts 20:17; Acts 12:5, 15:4, 11:26, 14:27; in 15:3, “Church” refers to Antiochean Christians, whereas in 15:4 it refers to Jerusalem Christians; in 9:31 Church is singular but refers to multiple locations of local assemblies)

2. It provides a parallel with Israel’s understanding that “synagogue” can refer to the whole nation or just a part (1 Maccabees 3:44, Susanna 41, 59-60).

Now of course this doesn’t strictly require that the local church be an extension of the whole. If you don’t find the arguments above convincing, then it appears we might just be on even ground here. But anyways, if it is the case that a local Church manifests the fullness of the Church, then Paul’s predication of being a pillar and ground of truth could be applied to the whole as a result of its predication of one single Church (though this wouldn’t be logically necessitated either).

“Because this is the only interpretation we have from early Christians about the nature of the Church, absent evidence to the contrary, we should assume this accurately reflects and appropriates Jesus’ own understanding.”

You keep referring to the “early Church” in the singular. But this monolithic picture oversimplifies the variety of claimants. What about “heretics” and “schismatics”? What about the historical evolution of the episcopate? What about the evolution of certain patriarchates?

Heretics and schismatics can be written off insofar as they don’t teach consistently with what Jesus and the apostles taught. As for the episcopate/patriarchates see below in relation to tracing the identity of an organization over time.

“I think the criteria would be that the best claimant to being the Church is whoever 1. Understands itself in the same way that Jesus and the apostles understood the Church.”

This assumes the priority of Scripture.

No, it just assumes that we can identify to some degree what Jesus and the apostles understood about the Church on an historical basis, treating Scripture as a record of their words and teachings.

“2. Seems to in fact operate and exist in the same way that the original Church operated and existed.”

Isn’t NT church polity far simpler than Orthodox church polity?

This is true in a qualified sense–namely there weren’t enough bishops for there to be “degrees of honor/seniority” which is the main distinction in the various levels of the episcopate. But it is possible for societies to develop and retain the same identity in the process (see Swinburne’s “Revelation: from Metaphor to Analogy”, specifically his chapter on the Church). Furthermore, it is possible to successfully trace the development of a society and identify it as it endures through change (if you want me to explain further then just ask). If we come to questions about the Church with this understanding, then it seems to me like Orthodoxy could very easily qualify as the best contender because the Orthodox Church understands itself in a way that is (arguably) more consistent with the teachings of Jesus and the apostles about the Church than Protestant churches. (of course this all assumes the success of my arguments that Scripture teaches or implies ecclesial infallibility, etc.)

“Well I can’t be certain that Jesus and the apostles taught that ‘the majority of the hierarchy can make infallible decisions when in consensus’. But if the early Church was at all consistent with what Jesus had actually said, then it seems that a collegial/consensus model of authority should be the most likely framework for Church authority.”

You’re missing the point. In your original statement you made a sudden jump from “the church as a whole” to “the majority of the hierarchy.”

So you’re alternating between two propositions that are by no means interchangeable.

As I mentioned above, the hierarchy serve a representative function. They act on behalf of the part of the organization they represent; hence, when they act, the whole Church acts. This doesn’t seem like a sudden jump. In fact this appears to be operative in the apostolic decree (Acts 15:22-29) and perhaps elsewhere as well.

“Well I would say that if a person believes something contrary to the teaching of the apostles they are not actually a part of the Church. Arianism is clearly contrary to the teaching of the apostles so I don’t see any need to ask questions about whether or not an Arian council or an Arian consensus would be valid.”

Sorry, but this is textbook special-pleading. You were the one who originally appealed to the “majority of the hierarchs.” When, however, a majority of the hierarchs goes off the reservation, you say they don’t belong to the true church.

I don’t deny this, but if you’re going to make that move, then your Orthodox polity is just as unreliable as the Protestant polity you find fault with.

I don’t see how this is special pleading. I don’t think I ever said that “being decreed by the majority of the hierarchy” is the *only* criteria in operation here. You wouldn’t say that if all of the elders got together at your church and decided that every sermon would preach Arianism that this would be something your church had actually validly agreed about. Instead, they would have yielded their authority by decreeing something contrary to true prior teaching, thus estranging themselves from the true faith and any degree of authority or even membership they had claim to. And that’s the same kind of thing that I’m arguing is true about the EO.

“Could you provide documentation for the idea that the majority of the hierarchy agreed to the council?”

Sure:

“One of the worst conciliar debacles occurred with the Council of Ferrara-Florence (1438-1439) wherein all the sitting hierarchs except Mark of Ephesus capitulated to Rome; and on returning to their dioceses they met an angry reception—and most swiftly recanted in order to hold their sees,” Historical Dictionary of the Orthodox Church, 50.

Interesting. Do we have attestation for the idea that the majority of the hierarchy was present? Or is it just that the majority of those present were willing to consent?

Continuing:

“However this would seem to only apply to a few books.”

No, intertextuality is a pervasive literary phenomenon.

Sorry I think I originally misunderstood what you meant. Could you explain how this would help?

“And in any case it presupposes the divine authority of the authors.”

i) The first question to answer is the degree to which the self-witness of Scripture testifies to the scope of the canon.

ii) Whether or not you believe that testimony is a separate question with separate answers.

“This wouldn’t imply that the Bible is authoritative, just that it is accurate. What grounds the authority of the Bible?”

You’re merging two or three distinct issues:

i) How do we identify the canon?

ii) How authoritative is this identification?

iii) How do we establish the authority of Scripture?

Although these questions are interrelated, there’s no one answer to all three.

True. But if the canon is divine doctrine, then its status as authoritative Christian revelation can only be established (declared, formally sealed–not recognized epistemically) by divine authority. Anything less as a means of establishing the canon would be fallible, and subject to the possibility of revision in principle, which would indicate that the canon is the teaching of men, not of God. And this seems unacceptable. As far as I can tell, accuracy does not entail authority. Identifying a potential canon does not entail that there is authority behind said canon.

“It might give an individual access to the fact that the Bible has authority; but what about individuals who don’t have a confirming religious experience when they ask if the Bible is true? By what authority are they commanded to assent to the truth of the inspired Scriptures?”

Perhaps they lack this experience because they’re unregenerate. Nominal believers.

Instead of pointing them to an ecclesiastical shortcut, they need the New Birth.

The issue is not “can God reveal Himself privately?” but “is Christian revelation grounded in publicly-accessible authority?”

“I don’t see how any of this would ground the publicly-revealed authority of the Scriptures. Is there a publicly-accessible basis then is there for the Evangelical belief in the infallibility and authority of the Bible?”

Ground it for whom? Believers or unbelievers?

We cannot eliminate the subjective element, for we cannot eliminate grace.

True. But is grace also an objective thing, or is it just subjective?

We can supplement the subjective element with objective lines of evidence. As you must know, there are various ways of arguing for the inspiration of Scripture.

Sure, there are. But are they successful?

I think the question then becomes whether the objective evidence establishes the authority or just the *accuracy* of Scripture.

“Where can I find your critique?”

http://triablogue.blogspot.com/2005/11/tilting-at-windmills-1.html

http://triablogue.blogspot.com/2005/11/tilting-at-windmills-2.html

http://triablogue.blogspot.com/2005/11/tilting-at-windmills-3.html

That’s a fairly good critique. I have to commend you because it definitely addresses the text itself, even if I ultimately think most of the arguments you make are unsuccessful.

Also I find it amusing that Witherington actually responded. Congrats on scholarly recognition :D

“I see your point about frequency. Can you provide me with some examples where yada means ‘choice’?”

As you’re now aware, I’ve given some examples from Witherington. And I’ve also posted a reply to Abasciano.

Got it.

Another question, then: are there any examples outside the New Testament where “proginosko” means “choose beforehand”?

“And also, if yada can mean ‘choose’ or ‘know cognitively about the qualities of a person or thing’ then doesn’t this just put the two meanings on equal footing?”

That doesn’t put them on an equal exegetical footing, for the operative meaning is context-dependent.

I’m not sure if context would actually favor your interpretation in any of the cases that have been brought up. In which case, the other meaning that is used of human beings (knew beforehand) would probably apply.

“Why do you think proegno here functions as an antonym for aposato?”

Because the function of the relative clause in v2 is to ground the denial in v1. The verb in v2 forms an antithetical parallel to the verb in v1, as a positive way of affirming and supporting what he denies in v1.

The negation of reject is not “choose”, but “to not reject”. And indeed, “to not reject” is already stated in verse 2—“God *did not reject*”—and is an action that God performs. I see no reason to think that “foreknew”, then, would need to function as an antonym here. Either that or I am just not understanding your argument.

God will not reject his people, because he chose them—indeed, chose them beforehand (i.e. foreordination).

God doesn’t change his mind or go back on his word. That’s the drift. And that’s the structural relation between the two sentences.

“Why do you think proginosko applies to the remnant?”

Because, in Romans, there’s a contrast between ethnic Israel as a whole and the remnant. Ethnic Israel in general will fall away. Indeed, that had already occurred in the rejection of their Messiah. It’s the remnant that remains faithful because it’s the remnant that’s the object of divine election.

Surely there is a distinction between ethnic Israel and the remnant. But Paul’s explanation for the fact that God has not rejected his people is that he is an ethnic Israelite. Could this not be read as implying that the “people” in verse 1 (and hence verse 2) is ethnic Israel?

Study the flow of argument in Rom 11:1-5. Look at how v5 answers to 1-2.

I think I understand what you are saying, and what you are trying to draw from verse 5. But I wonder if the crux of your argument is actually question-begging.

Here’s what I’m thinking. Paul is specifically dealing with the issue of whether Israel has been completely and entirely rejected as a whole; he is not *directly* dealing with the issue of whether or not a saved elect remnant has persevered. Rather he is indirectly dealing with that issue because it is instrumental to answering the question of whether or not God has rejected ethinc Israel. In that case, bringing up the remnant shows that God has indeed not rejected all ethnic Israel, because the remnant consists of people who are ethnic Israelites.

You are saying that the answer in verse 5 is “God has not rejected his elect-to-salvation whom He elected, because at present there is a remnant chosen according to grace.” But why could it not be the case that the answer in verse 5 is something more like this: “God has not rejected his chosen ethnic people wholesale, because there are some ethnic Israelites who are indeed part of the new chosen people, elect to eternal salvation—a remnant like the 7000”?

And indeed I think there is something within the context of the verses in consideration which could be read as affirming a conditional election of the remnant, namely the fact that God’s act of reservation in verse 4 could be taken as contingent on the act of not bowing the knee to Baal.

Are there any major problems with this proposed exegesis?

“Wouldn’t it be better to compare Pauline theology to the Pharisees?”

My point is that Arminians are closer to the Sadducees, and Paul’s audience would not hear him taking the side of the Sadducees in Rom 9-11. So that’s one reason to reject the Arminian interpretation.

There are, however, many other factors involved in pinning down the correct interpretation. That’s just one way of narrowing the field of options.

I would actually tend to think Arminianism, Roman Catholicism, and Eastern Orthodoxy are more like the Pharisees, not the Saducees, whereas Calvinists are more like the Essenes. Pharisees were less deterministic than the Essenes. Pharisees had a stronger theology of sovereignty than the Saducees. There needs to be some kind of argument that the soteriology and doctrine of providence/election held by synergists is incompatible with the theology of the Pharisees and is closer to Saduceeism. Absent such an argument I think the fact that Pharisees held to a kind of co-existence and (dare I say) cooperation of divine and human agency could be prima-facie supportive of the non-Calvinist understanding as a framework.