{"id":5649,"date":"2010-02-26T05:43:01","date_gmt":"2010-02-26T05:43:01","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blog.beliefnet.com\/jesuscreed\/2010\/02\/the-creeds-at-the-jesus-creed.html"},"modified":"2010-02-26T05:43:01","modified_gmt":"2010-02-26T05:43:01","slug":"the-creeds-at-the-jesus-creed","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/jesuscreed\/2010\/02\/the-creeds-at-the-jesus-creed.html","title":{"rendered":"The Creeds at the Jesus Creed: David Opderbeck"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"Lawbook.jpg\"<\/a><\/span><\/p>\n

The Problem with Paleo-Orthodoxy<\/p>\n

I’m taking a break from my usual “Law” columns to write about something that’s been bothering me a bit.  <\/span>We have been talking here on Jesus Creed about the value and importance of the early Christian Creeds.  <\/span>It’s been suggested, for example in the recent book “Deep Church” by Jim Belcher,  <\/span>that the ecumenical Creeds provide a basis for marking the boundaries of Christian theology.  <\/span>This approach is often referred to as “paleo-orthodoxy.”  <\/span>The problem, in my view, is that it doesn’t work. In fact, I think the paleo-orthodoxy approach is opposed in significant ways to the “post-conservative” ethos that originally drew me to the emerging church conversation and that subsequently led me to participate in the Jesus Creed community.<\/p>\n

Do the ecumenical Creeds establish firm boundaries for Christian theology?  <\/span><\/b> <\/span>Is pale-orthodoxy consistent with or opposed to the emerging \/ post-conservative \/ “third way” ethos?<\/b><\/p>\n


\n<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

I should note clearly hear that I will
\nhappily recite the Apostle’s and Nicene Creeds.  <\/span>I agree with paleo-orthodoxy that these Creeds reflect
\nimportant, basic truths about God and Christ.  <\/span>I also agree that these Creeds establish a pattern for the
\nChurch’s proclamation of the Gospel.   <\/span>The Creeds emphasize the basic Biblical themes of
\ncreation, Trinity, incarnation, resurrection and redemption, and proclaim in
\nparticular the events of the birth, crucifixion and resurrection of
\nChrist.  <\/span>This is the Gospel that
\nthe Church has always proclaimed and always must proclaim, for the Gospel
\nfundamentally is rooted in God’s Trinitarian person and in these kerygmatic
\nevents.  <\/span>The Gospel is the “faith
\nthat was once for all entrusted to the saints” (Jude 1:3), which does not
\nchange.<\/span><\/p>\n

But paleo-orthodoxy, it seems to me, understands the Creeds
\nto have a greater authority than that of faithfully reflecting a pattern for
\nGospel proclamation.  <\/span>  <\/span>For paleo-orthodoxy, the
\necumenical Creeds are authoritative<\/i>
\nfor doctrine and theology because they are part of the “history of the Holy
\nSpirit.”  <\/span>To be sure, the Creeds
\nfor the paleo-orthodox are subsidiary authorities to scripture, but
\nnevertheless they are in some sense binding authorities.  <\/span>In principle, for the paleo-orthodox,
\nthe Creeds are reformable in accordance with scripture.  <\/span>In practice, however, the Creeds for
\nthem are functionally infallible (or so it seems to me, and to some other
\nobservers such as Roger Olson, who writes to this effect in his book Reformed
\nand Always Reforming).<\/p>\n

I find this notion troubling, for several reasons:  <\/span>(1) it functionally compromises the
\nReformational principles of sola
\nscriptura<\/i> (though it formally maintains that principle) and of the
\npriesthood of all believers; (2) it is highly selective – indeed arbitrary –
\nabout which parts of the “history of the Holy Spirit” are authoritative; and
\n(3) it leaves unmanageable ambiguities about the status of some creedal
\nstatements.<\/p>\n

As to point (1), paleo-orthodoxy places tremendous emphasis
\non the consensus of the councils that produced some of the ecumenical creeds,
\nparticularly the Nicene Creed.  <\/span>As
\na historical and doctrinal matter, I think the Council of Nicea reached the
\ncorrect result in condemning Arianism. 
\n<\/span>I believe the Holy Spirit was indeed at work in that process.  <\/span>However, I don’t want to imagine the
\nCouncil’s vote as somehow bearing God’s own final
\nauthority<\/i>.  <\/span>There is a
\nsignificant difference between discerning that God was active in guiding a set
\nof contingent circumstances and taking that contingent guidance to represent a
\nbinding judgment for all places and times.  <\/span>Sola scriptura<\/i>
\nargues that scripture alone enjoys ultimately binding status.  <\/span>The priesthood of all believers
\nsuggests that each Christian is both free and responsible to respond to God’s
\nrevelation in scripture, without intermediation by any conciliar authority.<\/p>\n

As to point (2), no one has ever been able to explain to me
\nwhy the Canons of the Council of Nicea can be rejected and ignored if the
\nNicene Creed is a binding authority. 
\n<\/span>The Council understood the Canons to be just as binding as the
\nCreed.  <\/span>In fact, the Roman Church
\neventually developed an elaborate system of Canon Law based on the historical
\nseries of Creeds, Canons, and other rulings of which the Nicene Creed is but
\none part.  <\/span>Many of the Canons
\nrelate to questions of Church authority and governance that fundamentally are
\nrejected by all Protestants.  <\/span>The
\nCanons reflect and encode the universal belief of the Council that there was
\none holy, apostolic, visible<\/i>
\nChurch.  <\/span>I cannot discern from
\npaleo-orthodoxy any rational, Biblical or theological principle by which the
\nCreed can be surgically extracted from its historical context of Canons and
\nChurch.<\/p>\n

Finally, as to point (3), a prime example is what is sometimes
\ncalled the third ecumenical creed, the Athanasian Creed.  <\/span>Jim Belcher lists the Athanasian Creed
\nalong with the Apostle’s and Nicene Creeds as one of the basic statements of
\nthe historic Christian faith.  <\/span>It
\nwas listed in the Lutheran Book of Concord in 1580, and is still recited in the
\nLutheran Church on Trinity Sunday. 
\n<\/span><\/p>\n

But some parts of the Athanasian Creed should
\ngive most Protestants, and indeed all contemporary Christians, pause.  <\/span>I’m referring here not to the
\nAthanasian Creed’s Trinitarian and Christological statements, which essentially
\namplify the earlier Chalcedonian definition, but to its statements about
\nsoteriology and its so-called “damnatory clauses.”  <\/span>In relevant part, it states:  <\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

“And
\nthey that have done good shall go into life everlasting; and they that have
\ndone evil, into everlasting fire. <\/span><\/i><\/p>\n

This
\nis the catholic faith; which except a man believe faithfully and firmly, he
\ncannot be saved.”<\/span><\/i><\/p>\n

These statements seem to contradict some
\nbasic Reformational principles about justification by faith, including Article
\nIV of the Augsburg Confession, which also is part of the Book of Concord:  <\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

“men
\ncannot be justified before God by their own strength, merits, or works, but are
\nfreely justified for <\/a>Christ’s sake, through faith, when
\nthey believe that they are received into favor, and that their sins are
\nforgiven for Christ’s sake, who, by His death, has made satisfaction for our
\nsins. <\/a>This faith God imputes for righteousness in His
\nsight.”<\/span><\/i><\/p>\n

How can it be that, according to the
\nAthanasian Creed, those who have “done good” merit everlasting life, while
\naccording to Reformed theology as expressed in the same Book of Concord, no one
\n“does good” and those who are saved only gain that benefit through God’s
\ngrace?  <\/span>The usual answer is that
\nthe Athanasian Creed is referring to good works as the fruits <\/i>of faith, in other words to the process of
\nsanctification.  <\/span>That explanation seems
\nto represent an eisegetical move, however:  <\/span>it is a uniquely fifteenth-century Reformed gloss on  <\/span>the sixth-century soteriology reflected
\nin the creedal statement.<\/span><\/p>\n

And what of the apparent requirement in the
\nAthanasian Creed that only those who consciously confess a properly Trinitarian
\nand Christocentric faith are saved? 
\n<\/span>For example, what about the problem of people who die in infancy, or the
\nmentally disabled, or those who have never heard the gospel?  <\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

Reformed theology early on developed a
\nresponse to at least some such problems through the mystery of election.  <\/span>For example, the Westminster Confession
\nstates that “[e]lect infants, dying in
\ninfancy, are regenerated and saved by Christ through the Spirit, who worketh
\nwhen, and where, and how he pleaseth. So also are all other elect persons who
\nare incapable of being outwardly called by the ministry of the Word.”  <\/span><\/i>In part because of concerns about
\nthese damnatory clauses, the Anglican Church in the 19th<\/sup> Century
\nremoved the reference to the Athanasian Creed from its Thirty-Nine
\nArticles.  <\/span>Notables such as John
\nWesley and C.S. Lewis have also balked at these clauses and interpreted them to
\napply only to willful unbelief. 
\n<\/span>Even contemporary Roman Catholic theology, after Vatican II, allows for
\nthe possibility of the salvation of unbaptized infants and the unevangelized.  <\/span>Partly in that spirit, the Athanasian
\nCreed is rarely recited today in Catholic worship.<\/span><\/p>\n

Is the point of this discussion to bash the
\nAthanasian Creed?  <\/span>No.  <\/span>It is a beautiful Trinitarian and
\nChristological statement.  <\/span>The
\npoint is that even a document considered an “ecumenical Creed” has been subject
\nto repeated reinterpretation by the Church as other aspects of theology
\ndeveloped.  <\/span>It’s fair to say, I
\nthink, that none<\/i> of the churches that
\ntoday include the Athanasian Creed as part of their official documents take all
\nof that Creed’s soteriological statements at face value.  <\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

This suggests to me that the Creeds simply
\ncannot bear the weight paleo-orthodoxy seems to want to place upon them.  <\/span>They do not in themselves provide a
\nsure foundation for theology and doctrine because they stand in conversational
\nrelationship with scripture and with the ongoing historical construction of
\ndoctrine.  <\/span>They are invaluable
\nconversation partners for us today as we seek to participate in the Holy
\nSpirit’s ongoing work.  <\/span>We cannot
\nignore them, and we should not expect the shape of our theology to vary
\nsignificantly from the patterns they have set for the Tradition.  <\/span>At the same time, theology is an
\nongoing constructive project, semper
\nreformanda<\/i>.<\/span><\/p>\n

Is
\nthis a fair discussion of the problems with paleo-orthodoxy?  <\/span>Can a paleo-orthodox sensibility
\ncoexist with a post-conservative impulse? 
\n<\/span>Can a post-conservative ( or post-liberal) impulse effectively pass
\nalong “faith that was once for all entrusted to the saints?”<\/span><\/b><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

 <\/span><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The Problem with Paleo-Orthodoxy I’m taking a break from my usual “Law” columns to write about something that’s been bothering me a bit.  We have been talking here on Jesus Creed about the value and importance of the early Christian Creeds.  It’s been suggested, for example in the recent book “Deep Church” by Jim Belcher,  that the ecumenical…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":70,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-5649","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-gospel"],"yoast_head":"\nThe Creeds at the Jesus Creed: David Opderbeck - Jesus Creed<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/jesuscreed\/2010\/02\/the-creeds-at-the-jesus-creed.html\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"The Creeds at the Jesus Creed: David Opderbeck - 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