Canon and on

In recent discussions I have had here in Oxford the issue of the development of the canon has loomed large. Post-liberalism tends to agree with Roman Catholicism that the canon is the creation of the church, or is even a practice of the church. Quotes aren't arguments, but, here are three that caught my eye:

The idea that the Bible should rule the church is not poplar today, when leading scholars in the fields are immersed in their own mythology of cultural relativity, but it is a concept which would have seemed perfectly in order to all the Fathers of the church. Gerald Bray, Creeds, Councils and Chirst, p.52

The apostolic succession of the Church must mean that it is guided by the Canon, that is, by the prophetic and apostolic word as the necessary rule of every word that is valid in the Church. K.Barth, Church Dogmatics 1.1, p.104

…the theological issues related to the historical development of the canon may appear rather perplexing to biblical scholars and theologians who would not want to conclude that the biblical canon is a creation of the church. E. Schnabel, "History, theology and the biblical canon: an introduction to basic issues" in Themelios 20:2, 1995, 16.

Necessary Heresy 1: Marcion, or how big is the Bible?

This week at St Ebbe's I am starting a series of three lectures entitled Necessary Heresies: What the Heretics Have to Teach Us.

We start on Wednesday with Marcion. Marcion - the wealthy son of a bishop (how did THAT happen?) - gained a great deal of influence in the 2nd century church and beyond for his teaching that the wrathful God of the Old Testament was in fact a different deity to that of the New. He rejected the OT as scripture, and also everything but the letters of Paul - and edited those as well! The Christian gospel was as he saw it a repudiation of everything that the OT stood for. Creation was the product of a malicious and wrathful demiurge, from whose clutches we were to be saved by the Son.

What is interesting here is the interplay between the scriptural/textual issue and the theological one. Marcion would have no truck with allegorising the distasteful bits of the OT away to make them palatable. He just wouldn't see them reconciled with the loving deity of the New - and so he rejected them on the basis of this theological criterion.

It is significant that Adolf von Harnack, the great German liberal-Protestant church historian, thought Marcion was the most significant theologian between Paul and Luther. Partly, this is because Marcion did get something right: he did understand the radical newness of the gospel - its breaking out of boundaries and its dissolving of religious strictures and superstitions. He did understand the import of Paul's radical critique of the torah. He did understand the heart of the gospel is not bare law but divine love.

But Harnack was badly wrong; as indeed was Marcion! It was of course the mission of 19th century liberal Protestantism to follow Marcion in his excision from the canon of the Bible parts that did not apparently square with gospel as they had determined it. The church of yore determined that this was not a step that was true to its own identity as a listening church, or as a Church of Jesus the Messiah: and this crisis forced it into recognition of the authoritative list of books that comprise the Bible, including the canon of the OT.

Is this heresy alive and well today?

Union between Canterbury and Rome?

This week a rather premature report came out regarding the possibility of union between Anglicans and Rome.

My dad (Archbishop of Sydney) had some interesting things to say about it here . I thought he was remarkably conciliatory for the kind of Protestant he is!

What would it take? Well, I think organisational unity is a distraction and at least in human terms unachieveable even if it was desireable. Far better to work at the local level... Bible study anyone? I think a real unity between believers is a possibility.

Part of the problem is the theology of the papacy. Not the papacy itself per se, but the untenable theology of the Petrine office. If the Popes actually exercised a remarkable biblical and spiritual leadership (as, I have to admit JP II did in part) then the authority of the papacy would become an attractive possibility. But I wouldn't want to be under papal authority in the way that it seems to be construed in Catholic formularies since Vatican 1.

Rahner on doctrinal boundaries

In the light of the Anglican Communion's drawing of a line in the doctrinal/ethical sand - well, kind of - I was interested to read this from our old friend Karl Rahner:

...a church cannot be a church if it would never have the courage to declare something anathema, if it could tolerate absolutely everything and anything as an equally justified opinion among Christians. (p. 382 Foundations of Christian Faith)

However: has there ever been such a church? Even the ultra-liberal revisionists have anathemas. They are forced to show where and who they would definitely exclude in order to meet precisely this criteria.

Immediately we have to ask about specifics. What are the core and basic truths? What are the negotiables? Rahner won't admit, as he goes on, that the dogmatic propositions of the faith are so easily detatchable from one another. They have a structure, which may be dislocated if even a small part is changed.

Anglican Communion gets tough

The Primates of the Anglican Communion have issued as tough a statement as you are likely to see in response to TEC (the US Episcopal Church). The call for discipline means a strengthening of the hand of the Communion itself to deal with errant dioceses. Sounds great, but:

This could be Sydney diocese.

If we go ahead with lay presidency - though it seems inconceivable from our point of view that the communion would care - we will be disciplined as TEC has been.

Is it really worth it? Worth risking all our property for? Worth risking our ties with Anglicans in Africa and Asia and England?

I don't think so.

Authority again

I have been invited by a Catholic priest and theologian acquaintance of mine to discuss the ARCIC document The Gift of Authority. The document says:

The meaning of the revealed Gospel of God is fully understood only within the Church. God’s revelation has been entrusted to a community. The Church cannot properly be described as an aggregate of individual believers, nor can its faith be considered the sum of the beliefs held by individuals. Believers are together the people of faith because they are incorporated by baptism into a community which receives the canonical Scriptures as the authentic Word of God; they receive faith within this community. The faith of the community precedes the faith of the individual. So, though one person’s journey of faith may begin with individual reading of Scripture, it cannot remain there. Individualistic interpretation of the Scriptures is not attuned to the reading of the text within the life of the Church and is incompatible with the nature of the authority of the revealed Word of God (cf. 2 Pet 1.20-21). Word of God and Church of God cannot be put asunder.

Can we assent to this really and maintain a Reformation understanding of the authority of scripture? It sounds to me as if this is paving the way for the authority of the Church to interpret scripture ...

Anglican/Roman Catholic Statement: 'The Gift of Authority'

I love this bit about 'cannot refrain from transmitting it to others (of course)', here interestingly framed in terms of the passing on of the tradition:

Tradition is a channel of the love of God, making it accessible in the Church and in the world today. Through it, from one generation to another, and from one place to another, humanity shares communion in the Holy Trinity. By the process of tradition, the Church ministers the grace of the Lord Jesus Christ and the koinonia of the Holy Spirit (cf. 2 Cor 13.14). Therefore Tradition is integral to the economy of grace, love and communion. For those whose ears have not heard and eyes have not seen, the moment of receiving the saving Gospel is an experience of enlightenment, forgiveness, healing, liberation. Those who participate in the communion of the Gospel cannot refrain from transmitting it to others, even if this means martyrdom. Tradition is both a treasure to be received by the people of God and a gift to be shared with all humanity.