The problem I noted last time is well-known by philosophers who work in the history of philosophy (I’m not sure that mainstream philosophers who stick almost entirely to recent stuff are so aware of it). Nor do I exempt myself from this lamentable tendency.
I’ll give a real example, with other peoples’ names omitted out of respect. Some years ago, I began reading a Great Historical Philosopher on a central Topic in philosophy.
I dug into his works with all my might, and along the way I was guided by the writings a Eminent Elder philosopher, and a Rising Star who is somewhere around a decade older than me, as they commented on the Great and on the Topic, and on the Great on the Topic. I didn’t publish my work on the Topic, but continued to think about it off and on. Then, goaded by some work by another, younger Rising Star, I went back and again read what the Great says about the Topic. To my shock, as plain as day, the former Rising Star, the Eminent Elder, and I had misread the Great. For philosophical reasons, we were all committed to not-P, and we had consistently read the Great as asserting not-P. But the Great plainly and repeatedly says and assumes P. The second Rising Star helped me to see this. But I emphasize, this second rising star is not better a philosopher than the other Star, and he’s certainly not better than the Eminent Elder. It’s just that the second Star’s agendas didn’t require him to assert not-P, and so he had no motive to attribute not-P to the Great. This kind of error can be corrected. Rising Star number two helped to change my mind, and in principle the other Star and the Elder might come around as well.
In theology, I believe this is an even bigger problem. The reason is that there are entrenched religious powers (pastors, bishops, seminaries, pope, popes, movements), entrenched in positions that require certain biblical texts to say P, even if they don’t. Philosophy has its entrenched powers and orthodoxies as well, but a philosopher’s livelihood, at least after tenure, doesn’t depend on his agreeing or pretending to agree with these. Also, theologians have a way of… “escalating” issues, so that Everything Depends on This Being True, whatever the pet issue is.
Some years ago I attended a Calvary Chapel church. That denomination has the sometimes exciting and sometimes incredibly boring habit of the pastor preaching through the whole Bible, verse by verse. (It can be boring when they just read “P” and then tell you “See, it says ‘P’. Yep, ‘P’ alright. Ain’t that great? ‘P’.”) I’ll never forget a Sunday when the pastor read a passage that pretty clearly asserted something contrary to Calvary Chapel orthodoxy (no, it didn’t have to do with the Trinity or Incarnation). So he reads “P”, and then with some embarrassment but with a straight face nonetheless, tells us that it we must interpret this passage as teaching not-P. I remember sitting there with my English and Greek New Testament on my lap and my mouth hanging open, and wishing it was a philosophy seminar, so I could object. But alas, it was a sermon, so I had to just swallow the bitter pill.
Now what does all this have to do with the Trinity? Just this – when you get deeply into some of the contemporary and historical debates, you’ll see that at least one side has to be mistaken about the proof-texts they’re hurling back and forth at one another. This isn’t because the disputants are stupid; to the contrary, the smarter you are, the more of a complicated theoretical agenda you’ll have, and the more creative you are at biblical interpretation. In sum, being a Great Theologian makes you more, not less likely to suffer from Theory-Warped Exegetical Syndrome. (Yes, I just made that “disease” up.) All you can do is to keep going back to the texts, and try to find people with a (relatively?) non-warped understanding of them to help you, and TRY not to let your agenda blind you to what is and what ain’t in the texts. And, pray for grace.
Sorry if it sounded like you struck a nerve. I really didn’t have a very strong reaction; actually I think Calvary pastors do things like that regularly because so few of them are intellectuals by disposition (which is not to say that they aren’t smart – they just have a strong disposition for the practical).
As you say, it’s a trap that everyone falls into. (Actually I think that this trap is almost entirely responsible for promoting both dispensationalism and covenant theology – they are both instances of a nice, neat grid being invented by somebody, and then read back into Scripture.) At any rate, your comment aroused curiosity, not offense or irritation. I don’t have any illusions about the greatness of Calvary Chapel; I happen to like it a lot and find it very helpful, and I agree with them doctrinally on the issues that I take to be essential (if not on all the issues they take to be essential), but I could certainly find things to complain about – anti-intellecualism is high on the list.
Hi Kenny,
Seems I struck a little bit of a nerve! No, it wasn’t any of those three things, but it doesn’t matter what it was. Fact is, many other evangelicals hold it. I don’t want to pick on Calvary Chapel, though I have seen some very unhealthy manifestations of your (1).
The episode I related was just a fairly clear, if not a crystal clear, case of tradition vs. text. It wasn’t that his view lacked adequate justification – it was the unusual spectacle of the text seeming to teach the exact opposite of what was being asserted. This pastor was no intellectual, but I don’t accuse him of any special failing – it’s human nature. We want it to say what we want it to say, and it’s so very hard to kill off that tendency. I guess it’s even more shocking when you see it in intellectuals, indeed, in some of the world’s best.
I’m interested in your Calvary Chapel comment, as a Calvary guy myself. Calvary has a broader conception of orthodoxy than many suppose; it happens that it attracts people, especially pastors, who agree with the vast majority of Chuck Smith’s teachings (though there are exceptions – for instance, Chuck Smith rejects all five points of Calvinism, but I’m told by people who have studied there that most of the students and faculty at the big Calvary Bible College in California accept four of the five; I don’t remember which one they reject, nor am I entirely sure how you can do this in a consistent manner). However, most of these teachings are not actually required and from time to time we do get pastors who disagree on certain issues. What Calvary actually has is a short statement of faith (which I can’t find at the moment) which they think you have to believe in order to be a Christian at all (this is the same sort of statement of faith you would get from any Evangelical parachurch organization – it’s basically the Nicene Creed plus the authority of Scripture, with a few differences in emphasis from the original Creed due to the problems facing the Church today), and then the Calvary Chapel Distinctives document. The distinctives document (which is long, and I was just skimming over it), only has a couple of points I would regard as controversial: (1) church government (authority given almost entirely to a single pastor), (2) baptism in the Holy Spirit, and (3) pre-Tribulation Rapture (they don’t have full-blown dispensationalism in the distinctives document, though most Calvary people believe in it). For the record, I think their view in (1) is close to correct but slightly off, and I’m more or less agnostic on (3). (I guess I’m not a very good Calvary guy.)
Anyway, I’m just wondering whether the problem was one of these things or some less central point (e.g. Chuck Smith’s particular teaching on spiritual gifts), and whether the problem was that the pastor’s view was (in your opinion) clearly Biblically unjustifiable, or just that he failed to address the argument against it which was apparent in the passage he was supposed to be teaching on.
I see this all the time – especially when I encounter fellow Christians’ take on Scripture’s prophetic or apocalyptic literature.
“Well, this passage must be all about the coming United States of Europe – it can’t be about Rome/Greece/Babylon/etc. after all!”
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