From: Terry M. Gray (grayt@lamar.colostate.edu)
Date: Wed Jun 25 2003 - 12:44:51 EDT
Geroge Murphy wrote:
> The difficulty is not with the 2 books idea itself but with
>the order in which
>they are read. The book of scripture needs to be read before the
>book of nature (in
>order to do theology - not science). In addition, the "book of
>scripture" should be
>understood as witness to God's fundamental revelation, not that
>revelation itself.
No problem with the first two sentences, but I do feel obliged to
comment on the last sentence, since the idea seems to be coming up
again.
I hope that here we are simply making the distinction between the
saving work of God (throughout redemptive history and especially in
Christ) and the divinely inspired commentary on that saving work that
is found in scripture. I don't think that traditional Christian
theology of all stripes (until perhaps the last 100-150 years) has
hesitated to call scripture "revelation". This is in part the
significance of the first plank of the ASA statement of faith. The
Bible is divinely inspired (despite whatever humanness is found
therein) and is infalllible and authoritative as a result. We're not
speaking here of the musings of a faith community. We're speaking of
writings that God himself guided with the result being that they can
be considered His Word with a "thus saith the Lord" attached to their
reading (and not just the words of the faith community).
This is no fundamentalist innovation, but can be found in nearly all
the writings of the ancient church fathers and the confessions of
nearly all stripes of the Christian church. The Bible has had a
controlling influence on theology. Creativity in theology is limited
to that which is consistent with scripture. There's a sense in which
scripture (and the redemptive history to which they authoritatively
bear witness) is the data of "theological theorizing". For example,
the ancient creeds are the Church Fathers' best efforts to understand
the "data" of scripture--it is not scripture itself. Theological
aberrations defined by these creeds because the are not faithful to
all the teaching of scripture.
To reduce scripture to the fallible reflections of a faith community
that encountered the saving acts of God is to stop way short of what
scripture says about itself. I hope that we all recognize that this
way of speaking of scripture is an innovation of the past century
that the first plank of the ASA statement of faith is meant to
counter.
TG
-- _________________ Terry M. Gray, Ph.D., Computer Support Scientist Chemistry Department, Colorado State University Fort Collins, Colorado 80523 grayt@lamar.colostate.edu http://www.chm.colostate.edu/~grayt/ phone: 970-491-7003 fax: 970-491-1801
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