JESUS is a way, but not the only way to salvation, the Presiding Bishop of the Episcopal Church, the Most Rev Katharine Jefferts Schori has told members of the Diocese of Quincy….
“If Billy Graham or Pope Benedict” were asked the questions the presiding bishop were asked, they would respond that “Jesus is the way, the truth and life,” South Carolina theologian Canon Kendall Harmon said. In a time of doctrinal confusion, “good leadership claims its particular identity from the stability of its historical faith,” he argued.
“It’s the leadership of this church giving up the unique claims of Christianity,” Canon Harmon said. “They act like it’s Baskin-Robbins. You just choose a different flavour and everyone gets in the store.”
[blockquote]JESUS is a way, but not the only way to salvation, the Presiding Bishop of the Episcopal Church, the Most Rev Katharine Jefferts Schori has told members of the Diocese of Quincy….[/blockquote] I guess we’ll have to eliminate the 18th article of religion from the historical documents of the BCP.
[blockquote]XVIII. Of obtaining eternal Salvation only by the Name of Christ They also are to be had accursed that presume to say, That every man shall be saved by the Law or Sect which he professeth, so that he be diligent to frame his life according to that Law, and the light of Nature. For Holy Scripture doth set out unto us only the Name of Jesus Christ, whereby men must be saved.[/blockquote]
[blockquote]JESUS is a way, but not the only way to salvation[/blockquote]
This is really the lazy way out for the PB, I gather from her statement that she thinks it is unnecessary even to make an effort to offer the saving Grace of Jesus Christ to non-Christians.
Does this mean that the Presiding Bishop believes that the church is no longer called to offer the saving Grace of Jesus to others or to expand the ministry of the church to include non-Christians or to proclaim the Gospel to those who could be called by the Holy Spirit to convert to Christianity?
I get the distinct impression that she wants all religions to stay in their own separate little boxes.
Macbeth is qoted as saying, when things really got messed up, of “..creatures that lie like truth..”
I beter not go on.
Nuff said!!
Your complaints would be so more persuasive if you could point to even one person who could be confirmed (A) not to have achieved salvation, (B) because he didn’t accept Jesus as his personal savior, or whatever other formulation you like.
#4. D. C. Toedt,
D.C. would you rephrase this statement so I can have another crack at an answer to whatever it was you said. Are you saying that it cannot be proved that someone is not saved because they did not accept Christ as their savior?
Dcn Dale [#5], I would welcome even evidence — as opposed to speculation — that any given person, alive or dead, is not “saved,” however you choose to define that.
Of course, then you would have to come up with evidence that the reason the person wasn’t saved was that he did not “come to the Father through [Jesus]” — whatever that means.
D.C. Toedt, you either believe what the Bible says, or you don’t. Jesus said, “No one comes to the Father except by me”. Peter proclaimed that it is only by Jesus Christ that we are saved. How do you “know” if anyone is “saved” or not? You cannot. Your question is specious.
So, you can trust what the Bible says, or you can take your chances.
Re: Baskin Robbins example – I could then sue the store so that my flavor will always be in the freezer for the future generations I’m not having.
Re: #6 – ? Are you opening the whole can o’ worms about empirical evidence for supernatural claims? I don’t know too many folks who would claim this to be possible. Paul tells us to “work out our salvation with fear and trembling” in Philippians 2, building on the example of Christ’s sacrificial obedience to the Father.
So, those who manifest obedience to God’s will as revealed in Christ are likely on the way to salvation, and those who seem set against God’s will as revealed in Christ should be warned that they aren’t. But none of us can see the full run of other’s lives, or the inner nooks and crannies of their souls. All are “works in progress”, as Paul says a number of different ways. And this is why it is foolishness for the church to dismiss or conceal Scripture from the people – the Old and New Testaments “contain all things necessary to salvation” and other “religious” stuff does not. So the Biblical message must be set forth for people to engage, and it should trump slogans, “spiritual” claims and eisegetically imported agendas in the church’s teaching. This is what the Reformers express in the Preface to the first Book of Common Prayer.
I am an Episcopalian/Anglican because the church used to set forth right teaching while exercising humble restraint about making final judgments on the state of members’ souls. Right prayer, based in Scripture, guided with pastoral patience.
But at the end of the day you ask a strange question. I mean, can you give me empirical proof that there even exists a state of existence which constitutes “salvation?”
If your position is that all are saved, you run up against the same “prove it” challenge that you’ve posted. Give “evidence – as opposed to speculation – that any person, alive or dead, is saved.”
D. C. (#4),
Your objection is an example of what philosophers and teachers of logic would call a category mistake. The final sorting out of the saved and not saved hasn’t taken place yet. It comes at the end of the age when Christ returns to judge the living and the dead, so of course it’s impossible (within the biblical and Christian worldview) to point to anyone who is conclusively known to have been unquestionably lost and eternally damned on account of their refusal to believe the gospel about Jesus Christ. The very fact that you make such a statement betrays a non-Christian way of thinking.
Of course, you are perfectly free to pose such a challenge. It’s a free country, after all, and Kendall runs a remarkably open blog that rarely censors comments. But naturally, you can’t simultaneously make such an objection and claim to be a Christian. And that is, in essence, the problem with the PB. She is free to hold the religious opinions that she does, but she can’t with integrity then claim to be a Christian, much less a bishop in the Church of Jesus Christ. The fact that TEC tolerates a heretic like her, along with the likes of Kevin Genpo Thew Forrester or Ann Holmes Redding (etc.), is one of the clear signs that the Episcopal Church is terribly confused and very, very spiritually sick, nigh unto death.
The counter question many of us here would ask you is this: ON WHAT AUTHORITY or grounds do you reject the plain teaching of Holy Scripture that salvation is only found in Jesus Christ?
Another way of putting it is this. Paul teaches (in Phil. 2:11, echoing Isaiah) that someday “every knee will bow and every tongue will confess that Jesus Christ is Lord, to the glory of God the Father.” Do you believe that, D. C., or do you not? Do you believe that some wonderful day in the future Buddha and Mohammed and Socrates and Moses and every other human being (and religious leader) who has ever lived will make that confession? And if not, why not??
David Handy+
Hmmm. Before the dialogue/debate with D.C. progresses much further, I think it might be worth noting that there is something a bit uncouth in Kendall tooting his own horn on this thread. Aftrer all, he could’ve quoted another, earlier part of George Conger’s report about the PB’s visit to Quincy instead of the part that features his striking Baskins Robbins analogy, or his pointed contrast between how the PB answered the question put to her and how Billy Graham, or Pope Benedict, or any other orthodox Christian throughout the ages would’ve answered the same question.
Not very humble of you, Kendall (wink). But if it were my blog, I’d probably have done the same thing.
David Handy+
I wonder what D.C.’s idea of achieving salvation is.
I think that PB Schori is theologically unformed (i’m being charitable here). She can’t see, I think, that saying that on the one hand Jesus is the only way does not on the other say that no one but the believing Christian shall attain salvation. God can work in this world any way he wants, but it was only Jesus’ life and death that opened the doors of heaven for all. I really do wonder if this is too much for her to comprehend. Any thoughts?. Thx.
I’m not even going to comment on the theological problems with her position since they’re obvious. What I TRULY can’t comprehend, since it’s already been established she’s not a theologian or faithful shepherd, is how poor she is an organizational leader!
A good organizational leader is SOLD on the message of the organization, wants to share it with everyone and GROW the organization! This woman seems hell-bent (pun intended) on driving people away and not sharing the message with others! By seeking to appease and attract a very, very small segment of what she would consider the “worthies,” she’s reducing the organization to a little liberal think-tank that holds weekly parades. Thus, from even a purely organizational and secular POV, she’s failing miserably. Can’t she and her comrades see even this?
the presiding bishop said that to insist Jesus is the only way to God is to “limit God.†She said that God was at work in the lives of other faiths.
What I find so annoying about this is that the Presiding Bishop seems to concede a literal interpretation of the Gospel of John. Does ‘no one comes to the Father but through me’ mean that we must know the person who was Jesus of Nazareth, or does it mean that we must emulate the life he called us to as best we can? (The latter can theoretically be done without knowing Jesus himself.)
Either of these is a possible interpretation of the text – although one may be more orthodox than the other – and I find it irritating that the PB seems not to acknowledge that.
The PB’s pastoral inexperience really shows through here. She clearly never had to deal with frustrated parishioners on questions like this.
I wonder what those who are more conservative than I think of the clause in Eucharistic Prayer D on p. 375 of the BCP, where it speaks of “those whose faith is known to [God] alone.” Is this bad theology to you? Is it possible for someone to have faith ‘in Jesus’ and only God know it?
WestJ [#7] writes: “… you can trust what the Bible says, or you can take your chances.”
It’s not an either/or proposition. I trust some portions of what the Bible says, because they’re reasonably consistent with everything else that has been revealed to us about the Creation. Other portions aren’t, and therefore I put far less (or no) trust in them.
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Timothy Fountain [#8] writes: “Are you opening the whole can o’ worms about empirical evidence for supernatural claims? I don’t know too many folks who would claim this to be possible.”
It’s not at all clear that the supernatural even exists. Certainly there are huge chunks of the Creation that we don’t understand, but history gives us every reason to hope we might do so at some point in the future. Maybe that’s not possible, but IMHO the only proper way to proceed is to keep working at it as though we will, much like a batter who hits a blooper but still runs for first base as hard as he can.
————–
Timothy Fountain [#8] writes: “… can you give me empirical proof that there even exists a state of existence which constitutes ‘salvation?'”
I have no idea whether such a state exists. I certainly hope it does, and I try to live my life as though it did. And I could definitely see limiting full fellowship in the church to those who share that hope and likewise try to live their lives accordingly. But it seems utterly irrational to require people to profess intellectual assent to such a state as a prerequisite to full fellowship; we simply don’t have enough information to justify doing that.
—————
TF writes: “If your position is that all are saved, you run up against the same ‘prove it’ challenge that you’ve posted.”
That’s not my position; I have no idea who, if anyone, ever achieves ‘salvation.’ (See also the previous paragraph.)
————-
David Handy+ [#9] writes:
Oh. I see. Given that the early church indisputably believed that this final sorting-out would be occurring Any Day Now — and it didn’t — please tell me again why people should even take this claim seriously any more, let alone set it up as a a mandatory belief for anyone who wants to be ‘in good standing’ in the church.
(And the stock answer, “you have to accept it on faith” isn’t an good response — not unless you’re willing to give equal dignity to non-Christian doctrines that are likewise accepted on faith by, say, Muslims or Mormons.)
————
David Handy+ [#9] asks:
No, I don’t believe this. Why not: Because there’s no reason to think it will happen, any more than there’s any reason to think that, say, a yet-to-come Messiah will restore the Temple as believed by some Jews. Indeed, the early church’s failed prediction that this would be happening in the then-near future is at least one and perhaps two strikes against the claim.
——————–
David Handy [#9] writes: “The very fact that you make such a statement betrays a non-Christian way of thinking.”
Um, you don’t have the exclusive trademark rights for the term ‘Christian.’
——————–
David Handy+ [#9] writes: “The counter question many of us here would ask you is this: ON WHAT AUTHORITY or grounds do you reject the plain teaching of Holy Scripture that salvation is only found in Jesus Christ? “
The short answer is: First, because the various authors of the writings we now call Scripture put their pants on one leg at a time just like the rest of us (I know, men didn’t even wear pants back then); and second, because there’s no reason to think those men had any better information on that score than we do.
The real question, though, is this: Is there any rational basis for accepting, as the final and supreme authority in matters of faith and morals, a finite collection of writings from 2,000 years ago, authored by obviously-fallible men, who were in possession of only a tiny fraction of the revelations about the Creation that have been given to us since their time (cf. Rom. 1.20).
————–
We’ve been over all these arguments time and again, but it’s always useful to articulate the pro- and con positions, if for no other reason than for the benefit of lurkers.
A short passage of scripture that springs to mind- then my thoughts
The Narrow Door:
Jesus went on his way through towns and villages, teaching and… someone said to him, “Lord, will those who are saved be few?” And he said to them, “Strive to enter through the narrow door. For many, I tell you, will seek to enter and will not be able. When once the master of the house has risen and shut the door, and you begin to stand outside and knock, saying, ‘Lord, open to us,’ then he will answer you, ‘I do not know where you come from.’ Then you will begin to say, ‘We ate and drank in your presence, and you taught in our streets.’ But he will say, ‘I tell you, I do not know where you come from. Depart from me, all you workers of evil!’ In that place there will be weeping and gnashing of teeth, when you see Abraham and Isaac and Jacob and all the prophets in the kingdom of God but you yourselves cast out. And people will come from east and west, and … behold, some are last who will be first, and some are first who will be last.”
D.C Toedt- I suggest you reflect on this passage for your evidence that there are those in existence who have not been saved.
I also cannot help, with heavy heart, to wonder if KJS is one who is currently first, with power and influence and pointy hat, who might one day be last. She seems to be one who could claimed to have taught on the street….only not the clear message of the Gospel.
Re: #12 rob k and #14 Sidney:
Back on the old T19 site, I once asked whether reasserters understood “no one comes to the Father but through me” to mean that all non-Christians were necessarily condemned to Hell, or whether salvation was somehow possible for them. There was a moderately lengthy thread of replies.
As I recall, the majority opined that, while salvation was only through Jesus, this salvation was available to non-Christians through some means not entirely known to us. Some cited Rahner’s idea of the “anonymous Christian.” Others brought up the story of Emeth, from C. S. Lewis’ The Last Battle.
However there was a minority, but a significant minority, on the thread who held the harder position that salvation was in fact impossible outside of Christianity.
The surprising thing, from over here on the reappraising side, is how hard it is to distinguish proponents of these two drastically different positions by their usual line of talk. If you ask them the kind of question put to the PB here, both camps will usually respond identically that Jesus is the only way to salvation and then stop talking. I hardly ever hear anyone add, “But of course it’s possible that people in other faiths are somehow finding Jesus in their own way.” Lacking that qualification it’s easy to mistake all reasserters for holding the hard-line position.
And that hard-line position, which condemns every single person who is not a Christian automatically to eternal torment in Hell, is a pretty hard one to stomach for people who profess to believe in a God of mercy and love. Small wonder that people like the PB react strongly against it.
[blockquote]Given that the early church indisputably believed that this final sorting-out would be occurring Any Day Now — and it didn’t — please tell me again why people should even take this claim seriously any more, let alone set it up as a a mandatory belief for anyone who wants to be ‘in good standing’ in the church.[/blockquote]
DC has turned the fallacy of the Red Herring into such a fine art that it is his tool of choice whenever he prefers not to address an issue.
When David Handy pointed out to DC that his demanding empirically verifiable evidence for what was not an empirically verifiable assertion was a category mistake–which it was–DC responds by introducing another point entirely, that the early Christians believed that the final judgment was going to happen in their lifetime. Since it did not, presumably we can dispense with an entirely different question, whether the life, death, and resurrection of Jesus Christ is uniquely constitutive of salvation for every human being, or rather, whether it is simply one possible variation or illustration of a salvation that is available elsewhere as well, or even perhaps everywhere.
The temptation for David Handy is now to get sidetracked on the question of whether or not the early Christians believed (mistakenly) that judgment was happening in their lifetime rather than pointing out that DC has dodged the issue.
On a previous discussion (a few days ago) when DC had appealed to the first commandment as warrant for an argument that simply did not follow, I pointed out that the verse prior to the first commandment identified the God of whom it spoke as the God who brought Israel out of Egypt–a God in whom DC does not believe. Since the point of the first commandment is that one places no other gods before this God–the one who brought Israel out of Egypt–DC’s appeal to that commandment was entirely unjustified.
Rather than conceding that he had tried to pull a fast one, DC once again fetched out a tremendously huge Red Herring. Unless I believed that God in Gen. 1:1 had literally spoken the words “Let there be light!” and created the world in seven 24 hour days, he claimed, I presumably could not believe that the God of whom the Ten Commandments spoke was the God identified in the verse previous as delivering the people of Israel from Egypt. DC had (as is his usual strategy) attempted to change the issue by distracting the attention from an exegetical point–Who is the God identified in the first commandment?–with a question of metaphysics and genre. When God speaks does he do so in an audible manner? Does Genesis 1 provide a scientific account of the manner in which God created the world (in six literal days) or does it rather use a genre available at that time in many cultures–the origins story–to say that one God (rather than many) had created everything that exists (rather than bits and parts of it) by his mere decision (rather than as in many various ancient origin stories, from pre-existing parts or through cosmic struggle with various forces)? And, of course, since Genesis 1 is canonically part of the Pentateuch, the God who creates the world in Genesis 1 is clearly the same God who delivers Israel from slavery in Egypt and declares in doing so “You shall have no other gods before me!”
This seems to be DC’s standard methodology, and why most discussions with him prove fruitless. He seems not really interested in rational discussion, but merely distraction. Note that the issue in this discussion is whether or not Jesus is the only way to salvation, Rather than address this question, DC has introduced at least two other entirely irrelevant issues: whether we can empirically produce (before the event itself) those who have been saved by Jesus, and whether the early Christians thought the judgment would take place in their lifetimes.
DC also clearly indicates exactly what relevance he actually allows to the Bible in his own life.
[blockquote]I trust some portions of what the Bible says, because they’re reasonably consistent with everything else that has been revealed to us about the Creation. Other portions aren’t, and therefore I put far less (or no) trust in them.[/blockquote]
DC allows the Bible to challenge him precisely to the extent that it agrees with whatever he already believes to be true–and not further. IOW, the Bible can never challenge DC because anything that might challenge his rationalistic empiricist prejudices will be rejected out of hand.
It is interesting that the one mode of salvation to which DC subscribes with blind faith and an absolute exclusivity that not even the most ardent fundamentalist could equal is rationalist empiricism. God saves through that which we can measure and test empirically, and through no other way.
And as an aside, Canon Harmon is either misquoted or uninformed with respect to Billy Graham’s position on salvation outside Christianity. His remarks in the past few years have raised the hackles of a number of conservative Christians and they are very like those of PB Schori. Although he clearly accepts the path of Christianity for himself, he refuses to “limit God” with respect to the possibility of other paths to salvation. But I suspect the Pope and Kendal are still in sync, except the Pope would reject everyone not Roman Catholic as not fully Christian thereby not saved.
Ross (#17),
Your point is a good one in terms of distinguishing two outlooks coexisting within the reasserter perspective. Don’t you think, though, that there’s an element of chicken and egg surrounding the Presiding Bishop’s stated position on salvation? Are her statements simply a reaction to the “fundamentalist” position adopted by her conservative critics over the last twenty years or is the “hard-line” stance you cite a reaction to the growing ambivalence in mainstream Episcopal circles to the uniqueness of Incarnation and Atonement (it could be both at same time, of course).
One thing that the Redding and Forrester cases suggests (and the latter case, at least, has had the Presiding Bishop’s blessing) is that there has been a substantive shift from ecumenism to something very different (and something with which many Muslims and Buddhists would take issue).
Most of the reasserters who post on this blog concede – at least when not fired up – that conversion is ultimately a quickening achieved by the intervention of the Holy Spirit; evangelists may spread the Word and convict the heart, but they do not directly convert. With regard to Emeth – a character I’ve always liked – I myself raised the question at a Palm Sunday adult forum about [i]where[/i] Emeth is when he meets Aslan. Has he actually left the Shadowlands when he passes through the Stable Door and, if so, does that mean that his “conversion” occurs after death?
I don’t claim to be a particularly good evangelist myself – though I’m aware that evangelism takes many forms – but it seems to me that the Church as a whole cannot afford to take such a Laodicean approach as the Presiding Bishop tends to avow. It is not as if she’s speaking in an early 19th Century context, in which there was little or no dialogue with non-Christian traditions, nor is she precluded from amplifying the theology of John’s Gospel, but that subtle shift from definite to indefinite article imposes an undue burden on the message of the Church by one chosen to speak for it, in season and out of it.
[url=http://catholicandreformed.blogspot.com]Catholic and Reformed[/url]
RE: “Um, you don’t have the exclusive trademark rights for the term ‘Christian.’”
Oh absolutely. And Buddhists don’t have the exclusive trademark rights for the term “Buddhist.”
That’s why, even though I utterly repudiate the Four Noble Truths, I proudly claim the name Buddhist. And even though my hair, in some circles, might be defined as “brown” I also proudly proclaim my blondness.
The fact that some people recognize that I’m not a blonde Buddhist is neither here nor there.
Signed,
The Blonde Buddhist
#15. D.C. Toedt,
I would consider you as, what is in contemporary parlance called a “follower of Jesus” since you are a materialist and the Kingdom of God is Spiritual. You are asking the same kind of questions as Nicodemus. #16 offered an excellent and relevant passage for you to reflect on and I would second that.
RE: “Your complaints would be so more persuasive if you could point to even one person . . . ”
Well, only for those who demand scientific, provable certainty for all metaphysical truth propositions — and I don’t think any of us are arrogant enough to attempt to “persuade” those people, recognizing that their own world must be fenced in in that manner for their own peace of mind and safety.
But it’s always silly when scientism purports to speak about the metaphysical. Puts me in mind of some of Freud’s spectacular “science” about certain matters, as well as other Victorian positivists I could name.
But other than the amusement afforded by reading the positivists’ proclamations in the late 1800s about science, sex, machines that would rule the world, and the total peace that science would produce in the “new century,” I am indifferent to the early 21st century versions of the same and make no attempt to persuade them to change a worldview that they have discerned will defend them from uncomfortable other realities.
#19,
I have no doubt whatseover that Kendall Harmon, Billy Graham, and Pope Benedict would all agree that the saving person and work of Jesus Christ is the exclusive means of salvation for every human being who is saved, without exception. The question is one of ontology, not epistemology. (How does God save? That is, Is the person and work of Jesus Christ exclusively constitutive of a salvation found nowhere else? Not, Does one have to have explicit and conscious faith in Jesus Christ for God to save one through Jesus?)
The Presiding Bishop has rejected the position that the person and work of Jesus Christ is uniquely constitutive of salvation. It seems clear from all that she has said and written that Jesus is at most an illustration of something that God is doing everywhere. We are not saved through what God has done in Jesus Christ, but through our “experience,” and that varies from person to person.
Kendall Harmon, Billy Graham, and the pope view salvation in objective ontological terms–it is something that God does through Jesus Christ outside of ourselves and apart from our efforts. KJS views salvation in entirely subjective and psychological terms. Salvation is something that happens exclusively in human consciousness. Presumably, one does not even need a deity for such a notion of salvation, let alone the work of Jesus Christ.
RE: “except the Pope would reject everyone not Roman Catholic as not fully Christian thereby not saved. . . . ”
Yikes. Doug Martin needs to familiarize himself with Vatican II and other documents of the Roman Catholic church.
Wm. Witt [#18] writes: “the one mode of salvation to which DC subscribes with blind faith and an absolute exclusivity that not even the most ardent fundamentalist could equal is rationalist empiricism. “
There you go again, WW, announcing with such certainty what it is that I subscribe to.
What I subscribe to — merely as a decent ‘working model,’ not as blind faith — is critical realism, which could be summarized as striving to keep in mind that we don’t know everything and that what we think we know could turn out to be wrong.
———–
Wm. Witt [#18] believes that, in my view, “God saves through that which we can measure and test empirically, and through no other way.”
You give me too much credit; I don’t know (as opposed to entertaining a not-irrational hope) that God saves at all. It’s certainly above my pay grade to proclaim with unwarranted certainty that he does so in any particular way(s).
———–
Sarah [#23] writes:“But it’s always silly when scientism purports to speak about the metaphysical.”
Sarah, the problem with your statement (pace Humpty Dumpty) is that what you describe as ‘the metaphysical’ is just what the given speaker chooses it to be, neither more nor less.
In contrast, science (as distinct from scientism) focuses on that which could be observed by anyone, not just by individuals claiming unique insights or special access to Truth.
Yes, Sarah #25, the Pope says that the Roman Church contains the fullest expression of truth, but not that Christians outside the RC Church are condemned to hell. Doug Martin needs to do more reading.
Possibly the theologians here will land on me like a ton on bricks. However, I have always thought of Jesus’s “No one comes the the Father but by me” as a statement of identity, in addition to the interpretations mentioned above, which are obvious. He is the Way, and the Truth, and the Life. There is no other. Whether those who do not explicitly confess this in this life can be saved is, to quote a politician, above my pay grade. I am sure that they are enormously benefited and more surely safe in the communion of the church, which Christ established for us. I am also sure that, if some who are outside the faith are saved by God’s grace, they will see in the hereafter what they did not see here, which is that Jesus is Lord and they are saved through Him, not by means of any other religious system which they may have known in the world.
Fortunately such matters are not above God’s ‘pay grade’ and He has given us a magnificent Handbook that outlines His position, and gives details..
But feel free to ignore it, as most do the automobile handbook.
After all, why do we need to know the specifics? “Just point the car that way, I’ll figure it out on my own!” works sooooo well (until there is a crash, or we run out of oil).
[blockquote]What I subscribe to — merely as a decent ‘working model,’ not as blind faith — is critical realism, which could be summarized as striving to keep in mind that we don’t know everything and that what we think we know could turn out to be wrong. [/blockquote]
DC,
Critical realism is not humble agnosticism. It is, over against Kant’s epistemological dualism–we know only phenomena (appearances), not numena (things-in-themselves)–the judgment that we do indeed know things in themselves.
Critical realism is not adverse to either metaphysics or miraculous intervention. The better critical realists in the last half century have often been orthodox Christians, e.g., Thomas F. Torrance, Bernard Lonergan, Alasdair MacIntyre, Norris Clarke, Ben F. Meyer. Your tendency to respond to every position with which you disagree with demands for empirically testable and verifiable evidence, and your refusal to consider as a possibility of reality anything that does not accord with what you already think you know about reality bespeaks a modernist rationalism, not critical realism.
Moreover, your repeated assertion that you “don’t know” and no one can possibly know what God might or might not do assumes that the issue is one of epistemology–what can we know–and not revelation–what God has told us. This is Cartesian doubt, not critical realism.
Wm Witt [#29] writes of my “tendency to respond to every position with which you disagree with demands for empirically testable and verifiable evidence …”
I also try to make such demands about positions with which I intuitively agree. You should read last week’s [url= http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/comment/faith/article6073771.ece%5DCredo piece[/url] by the Rev. Dr. John Polkinghorne, FRS, a particle physicist of some note turned late-call Anglican priest, and author of who knows how many books on science and religion:
As it happens, I can’t subscribe to Polkinghorne’s specific views on the Incarnation, etc., because I have a very different view of the reliability of the available evidence than he does. (And I think it’s fair to say that in that particular area, my professional training and experience are at least a match for his.) I do, however, wholeheartedly share Polkinghorne’s general willingness to accept what the evidence tells us, even at the cost of disrupting long-held notions.
It is sad when your god is only as large as your intellect, even if you might be very intelligent (or at least consider yourself so).
2 Peter 2:1
If you only wish to instill doubt and tear down the beliefs of Christians I think it might be wise to look inside yourself and see why you hate Christianity as a whole. I agree with Kendal Christianity and the Bible are not a cafeteria they are take it as a whole or don’t. Not all will enter heaven harsh but true. To believe otherwise is to allow doubt to water down the message of eternal life and Christianity itself.
If we all still lived in the Garden of Eden then and only then would all be saved but alas all have sinned and fallen short.
Thank you and God bless you, William Witt for your very clear explanations.
D.C.Toedt,
Do you consider yourself to be a Christian?
“It’s the leadership of this church giving up the unique claims of Christianity,†Canon Harmon said. This is wrong. What Harmon is saying has been said for a long time now. It’s far more today than a simple leadership issue.
While the floor of Hell might indeed be paved with the skulls of bishops, surely the underlying roadbed is comprised of those of lawyers.
Kate Schori is leading her flock into the maw of Hell, pure and simple.
D.C., your constant appeals to “evidence” based on empirical materialist presuppositions identifies you more as a logical positivist, not a critical realist in the vein of Arthur Peacocke, Thomas Torrance, et al. Read Peacocke, Torrance, MacIntyre, Newbigin to see how a broad spectrum of orthodox Christians engage epistemology from a critical realist position.
Look, we all know that DC is NOT a Christian. His blog and his writings deny any claim he may make to the contrary. And he is not going to change his mind by our pointing that out to him on T1:9. He may not be a ‘troll’, but our responses to his constant baiting (his using the same false arguments and red-herrings over and over) is not furthering the cause of Christ or evangelism, and may instead, turn others off.
My suggestion is to ignore his posts and continually pray for his conversion to the One who is the Way the Truth and the Life, that DC may serve him fully with all his being as zealously as he denies Him now, a lá St. Paul.
DC, I’m praying that for you, despite your denials that you need it.
In His peace
Jim Elliott <><
#38. libraryjim,
Yikes! I went to the website of D.C. Where does one begin? See for yourself. He claims to be an Episcopalian but “questions” the resurrection.The best construction would be to call this an agnostic statement. [blockquote]In essence, the church asks us to go “all in†on the proposition that Jesus was actually raised bodily from the dead. That bet has always been way too rich for my blood; I think there are more plausible explanations for the fact that Jesus’ followers found ‘his’ tomb to be empty on the morning after the Sabbath, and that later on some of those followers decided that they had encountered him — as recorded in questionable stories written down decades later in a different language.[/blockquote]
http://www.questioningchristian.org/
My question to followers of T19 is, “Where would knowledgeable people put him in the TEC spectrum? Is he a liberal Episcopalian? Is he is mainstream?”
D.C.,
Jesus offers us salvation in His name and even you you cannot prove Him wrong.
We realize that no one on this earth, of their own knowledge, understands what is to come after death and we as Christians accept the Word of God and are grateful that Jesus, our Savior has offered us salvation through faith in Him.
[blockquote]My question to followers of T19 is, “Where would knowledgeable people put him in the TEC spectrum? Is he a liberal Episcopalian? Is he is mainstream?â€[/blockquote]
In my reading, DC’s affinities are closer to Enlightenment deism than they are to mainstream TEC. He is a rationalist, an empiricist, and a moralist. (What he likes about Jesus are the two great commandments.) Rhetorically, he sounds to me a lot like Richard Dawkins, the atheist, except, inexplicably, DC believes in some kind of deity.
Mainstream TEC these days is “experientialist” and monist. Reason is not highly valued; “experience” is. Jesus is one of many ways to God because everyone’s human “experience” is a way to God. Indeed, in some sense we all ARE God.
TEC’s approach is post-modern; DC is still an old fashioned modernist. DC seems to believe in a god who is largely absent (except for hints here and there in morality and the common sense of Western upper middle class suburbanites). TEC believes in a god who is inseparable from whatever itch progressive activists need scratching on any given day.
However, they disbelieve a lot of the same things.
#41. William Witt,
Thanks for the response. I saw that he had a link to “Father Jake” who is in the liberal camp of TEC. The more I read on D.C.’s website, the more he sounds like he is operating on varying degrees of doubt or certainty. That sounds like science applied to faith, something in line with KJS. For orthodox Christians, Truth has been arrived at via Scripture, Tradition and Reason and there is no Experimental Hypothesis. For D.C. the Null has been rejected out of hand and the Experimental Hypothesis has been embraced. This is true of his view of Scripture, Reason and Tradition. All have become grist for the mill of a testable hypothesis. The problem with applying a scientific model is that it is limited to testing what is observable and quantifiable. As our Lord Christ has stated, Blessed are those that have not seen and believed (John 20:29). Is it also possible that as an attorney he is employing another means of seeking the truth? The adversarial model pits one version of truth against another. Is he “pitting” his version of the truth against our version? This isn’t science, it is law and I think that is what he is practicing here.
William Witt, you’ve hit on something that’s easy to forget, i.e., the changing way in which reappraisers reappraise.
Growing up in PECUSA, I was regaled with a liberalism whose weapon of choice was directly eroding received truth. The weapon of choice for most clergy of this style of mind was higher criticism coupled with social activism (most of these didn’t have either the background or the inclination to attack orthodox Christianity using science.) The concept was that, by creating enough doubt of received truths, people would come to their idea, and not just those in the church but those outside who had this idea on a secular basis.
The result was that PECUSA experienced a precipitous membership loss in the 1970’s (including me.) It didn’t make sense to deny the faith and then stay in a church.
Edging back into the Anglican/Episcopal world, I find that the rules of engagement have changed. Now we have people in TEC like VGR claiming that they are guided by the Holy Spirit, which from where I sit is absurd. Beyond that they spend a great deal of time reinterpreting the Scriptures which, in the past, they would have dealt with by denigrating their authenticity and truth content.
The result is that TEC has experienced a precipitous drop in membership this decade. It’s easier to find actualisation of reappraisers’ idea in secular social and political gatherings than in a church, especially when you’re attempting to reach out of an audience that is very secularised to start with.
The result of this is the same both ways. And this is a great, lamentable tragedy, both temporal and eternal.
I think your assessment that “TEC’s approach is post-modern; DC is still an old fashioned modernist” is correct. But it also illustrates that he may be an anachronism as well.
#43. vulcanhammer
Trying to understand what is happening in TEC sometimes is helped by putting a face on ideology. This does not mean that I am trying to personalize my criticism but that I really do want to grasp what is going on in TEC through the faces of those who claim membership. That is why I was trying to understand D.C. and where he fit in TEC. Eventually a forensic historian will offer a post mortem on TEC but my continuing concern is that those who remain in TEC do so with open eyes. Your comment that PECUSA was “eroding received truth” (and I agree that there is an “inch by inch” strategy) worries me from the standpoint of the most vulnerable. The elderly and the young have little choice about what is coming their way. I do not believe that there is a worse sin than causing someone to doubt or lose their faith.
Dcn Dale, I agree with you wholeheartedly.
I taught Soil Mechanics and Foundations for three semesters on an adjunct basis (and at what my department head calls “missionary pay.”) I discovered that my students learned best when presented with worked examples. That’s what we’re looking at here. And it is instructive.
To D.C -There are more things in Heaven and Earth, Horatio, than are dreamt of in your philosophies. …Hamlet. DC when did spring arrive?, I am not talking about the middle of the vernal equanox but the time when life seems new. I noted it the first of April this year walking my dog. Eli seemed to prance and had an unusual exuberiance for the walk, the crispness of the air that slowly warmed… When did you fall in love? What turned your head and hearty …When did you have your last truely great diner with guests and a meal that warmed the heart, soul and intellect…Now I want emprical proof other than your experiancial perception of these events or I will say they don’t exist and you have no proof other wise… How much poorer would we be with out them?
Sorry to be so long in responding; I just got back in town.
I think people may have the misimpression that I’m a robot who (or ‘that’) believes only in things capable of irrefutable empirical proof. Not so; depending on the circumstances, there are countless things I’m willing to provisionally accept as true on the basis of limited and even scant evidence.
But — and this is a huge but — there are definite limits to the actions I’m willing to take on the basis of a belief, absent some assurance that the belief is grounded in the reality that God wrought and not just in vivid human imagination (my own or others’).
Here’s an illustration I use a lot: A few years ago, during my annual physical checkup, my doctor noticed a small skin tag, which he said might become irritated through friction with my clothing. He suggested that he numb the area, slice off the tag, and cauterize the wound. I promptly agreed — in those circumstances, I had all the evidence I felt I needed to warrant a conclusion that the doctor knew what he was talking about.
Suppose, however, that my doctor had told me I had testicular cancer, and that it was imperative that he immediately remove both my cojones, right there on the spot. Rest assured I would not have agreed; for an action of such consequence, I most certainly would have judged it necessary to seek more evidence than just the doctor’s say-so.
So how does this tie in to our current topic of discussion? Thusly: I can think of no more-consequential action than to completely reorder one’s life, premised on the purported truth of the second and third chapters of the Nicene Creed. My own assessment, informed in party by professional training and experience, is that the evidence is insufficient to justify such a radical action.
—————
Dave B [#46] writes:
Dave B, you’re only asking half of the relevant question. The other half is: How consequential an action are you proposing to take, premised on the purported existence of my experience?
DB,
According to Scripture, Jesus died to redeem sins, and offered to redeem those who believed on Him. Jesus’ Apostles proclaimed the Gospel to the whole world, not just to the Jews, so how can we, as Christians justify withholding knowledge of the gospel from people of different faiths on the grounds of a flimsy (un-scientific) supposition that God will provide another way to salvation for them.
DB, post 47,
I don’t think that you are a robot but it does seems to me that you believe that if you cannot perceive it through your own senses or discern it through your intellect it does not exist unless it is exhaustively proved by other means.
The trouble with this approach is that we fallible human beings are of limited intelligence and bound by our sinful natures to make many mistakes so it behooves us to draw upon the knowledge of others, including the Word of God in Scripture, to guide us through the maze we travel through in this world.
Subtle note to Betty See:
It’s D[b]C[/b], not D[b]B[/b].
Oy, that was hard to do the bold with!
Libraryjim, Thanks for proofreading, I will watch my Ds and Cs from now on.
D C What is imperical proof today probably did not exist several hundred years ago hence the great stides in science, but You then agree that there are many things that make life a greater joy and make life more interesting that can not be proved imperically? I find the Spirit of God just so, blowing where it will, subtle but sublime. If I live my life as a Christian trying to share, put others first and prevent the abuse and harm of others and I am wrong I have harmed no one and helped a few. If I live to my self and am wrong about The Christ I have damaged not only my self but others! Which life would choose in ordering your world?
DC At some point the diner party may have imperical proof and these types of things have had profound effects.
Dave B [#52] writes:
Not only do I choose trying to live in accordance with the Summary of the Law, I’ve been known to try to convince others that it’s the most rational way to conduct one’s life — doing so makes you feel good, moreover the evidence suggests it’s the best way to make one’s infinitesimal contribution to God’s continuing work of creation.
(Since we can’t control whom or what we ‘love’ in the sense of an emotional feeling, I sometimes paraphrase the Summary as: 1) Face the facts — that is to say, live in the reality that God wrought (as opposed to a fantasy world of your own imagining); and 2) seek the best for others as you do for yourself.)
Where we disagree, Dave, is that many ‘Christians’ seem to think that ‘salvation’ also requires subscribing to certain christological and soteriological views that I regard as untenable because they’re not just unsupported by, but are actually contrary to, the evidence.
Ross – Re your no. 17 – I remember, I think, that thread. It was interesting. Re the last paragraph of your no. 17 comment – I don’t think that KJS grasps the the not-so-subtle point that the insistence on the uniquity of Christ’s acts as saving ones does not condemn non-Christians to perdition. I think that WW, in his no. 24, expressed very well my thinking. Thx.
#54. D.C. Toedt,
[blockquote]Where we disagree, Dave, is that many ‘Christians’ seem to think that ‘salvation’ also requires subscribing to certain christological and soteriological views that I regard as untenable because they’re not just unsupported by, but are actually contrary to, the evidence.[/blockquote] Actually, your statement is contrary to Biblical faith. “Faith is the substance of things hoped for, the evidence of things unseen” (Heb. 11:1). You have no faith.
This is a telling statement you’ve made. You see, the vast majority of Christians in this world would also not use quotation marks with the words Christians and Salvation when connected to the words c[C]hristoloical and soteriological views
I would like you to reflect on the following,
[blockquote] 1Jesus said to his disciples: “Things that cause people to sin are bound to come, but woe to that person through whom they come. 2It would be better for him to be thrown into the sea with a millstone tied around his neck than for him to cause one of these little ones to sin.Luke 17:1-2[/blockquote] When you publicly preach another Gospel (your Gospel) to others with your “enlightened” views of Christ and Scripture, you are diminishing or destroying their faith.
Dcn Dale [#56], again the relevant question is not, do we hope for X. Nor is the question even, do we suspect that X is going to happen. The real question is this: If we’re to keep in mind that we’re not God, then in conducting our lives, how much reliance can we properly place on untested speculation?
Sensible people should keep an eye on anyone who claimed to have ‘Biblical faith’ as you seem to view it. We’d never know when such folks might start acting out some private fantasy, theirs or someone else’s, Ã la David Koresh or Marshall Applewhite.
BTW, if you want to play the dueling-scriptural-quotations game, try this one:
I’m willing to take my chances having my views tested by that standard. If you are too, then please consider that the major predictions issuing from your worldview have been pretty much a total bust (see [url=http://www.questioningchristian.org/2005/10/is_jesus_coming.html]this essay[/url] I did a few years ago for extensive citations.)
DC, Thank you for your answer. I would suggest that, from my view, Christianity is a relationship with that is anchored in history not as emperical evidence but as a reality grasped by faith. The historical doctrines and Christology exist to prevent the David Korishes etc.
#57. D.C. Toedt,
[blockquote]I’m willing to take my chances having my views tested by that standard. If you are too, then please consider that the major predictions issuing from your worldview have been pretty much a total bust (see this essay I did a few years ago for extensive citations.)[/blockquote]
They are only a total bust in your mind which is the be all and end all of all things for you. Why not be honest enough to call your website “the Agnostic”?
Should read “relationship with Christ” sorry.