The New York Hermeneutic

A Response

A committee of the Diocese of New York recently published an essay entitled "Let the Reader Understand." The essay describes a hermeneutic, a set of principles for the interpretation of Scripture. The present essay is a response to that document.

In this essay I do the following: First, I shall describe the picture of God, creation, revelation, and Church that underlies the committee's interpretative principles. I shall then show how God, as envisioned by the New York hermeneutic, is not Trinitarian but modalistic. Similarly, I will describe how the picture is not properly Christological, but docetic. This implies that the hermeneutic will distort the biblical message. Finally, I will show that the essay covertly ascribes to the Church the same revelatory authority as that of Jesus and the apostles, thereby denying the Lordship of Jesus Christ. I begin with the picture. Unless noted otherwise, all quotations in this essay are from the New York report.

The Theology of the New York Hermeneutic

According to the New York hermeneutic, God has a plan, an eternal purpose for his creation. Although the plan is eternal and outside of time, it is worked out in creation through a series a divine words and deeds which reveal God's plan for the cosmos.

Secondly, creation is evolving, ever new and changing. Therefore, as God acts to reveal his plan, he adapts the eternal plan to new circumstances. These adaptations reflect the eternal purpose which, with the passage of time, grows and develops toward the final love and liberty of the people of God.

Thirdly, since the plan is adapted to new circumstances, and since creation is evolving, any particular expression of the plan at any moment can and does give way to different expressions at later moments. This implies that the plan itself cannot be expressed in specific words, doctrines, or moral norms which are valid for all times. The plan, however, can be expressed in abstractions such as love or freedom, and these abstractions will receive specific content according to changing circumstances. As this happens, earlier expressions are rendered obsolete by new circumstances which give rise to new expressions of the divine plan. These new expressions can contradict previous expressions, although both express the divine plan in their specific moments.

Fourth, in the process of revelation, human beings are not puppets or passive spectators. The people of God play an active and constitutive role in revelation. They are integrally involved in the expression of God's eternal purpose in specific historical moments.

Fifth, Scripture is the Word of God, and as such, it reveals the process whereby the eternal purpose is worked out in the history of God's people. Since particular expressions give way to subsequent expressions, Scripture does not reveal eternal moral norms or fixed doctrinal forms. Rather, it gives the initial expressions of the eternal plan, leaving it to the Church to express the same plan with new content in subsequent generations.

This is the picture that underlies the New York report. It finds expression in thirteen interpretative principles as well as commentary on these principles. Unlike classical heresies, the picture does not rise to the level of a rationally developed system. Nevertheless, it exhibits heretical characteristics. In what follows, I shall describe them, starting with the modalist heresy.

Modalism was the heresy that emphasized the oneness of the Trinity at the expense of the relations between Father, Son, and Spirit. The result was a divine One without inner triune relations. Or, to put it another way, the three persons of the Trinity were blended as one within God. Analogously, outside of God, this heresy tended to blend the external works of Father, Son, and Spirit, so that creation was blended with incarnation and both blended with the work of the Spirit.

The New York hermeneutic envisions God as a divine One who reveals himself in a series of partial revelations, each expressing the divine plan in their historical moment. In this picture, creation would be the first of God's acts, followed by an evolving Old Testament revelation, then the revelation in Jesus Christ which modified the Old Testament revelation, followed by further modifications by the apostolic Church, followed by further modifications and evolving insights throughout Church history until the present day. The distinctions between creation by the Father, the incarnation of the Son, and the work of the Spirit forming the Church, are blended since the relations between these divine acts are not distinguished, and further, all divine acts are subservient to the one ongoing cumulative revelation of the divine. In this sense, the interpretative principles are modalistic. This will become more apparent in what follows.

Christologically, the interpretative principles are docetic. Docetism was the heresy that the divine could not become incarnate in the person of Jesus in all his concreteness. Docetism took several forms, one of them being that Jesus only appeared to suffer, or that, when he did suffer, the divine Word left him. In a more general sense, docetism is the belief that the divine eternal is timeless, outside the flux of the temporal world, and therefore never "captured" by specific events. The phrase from John 1:14, that the "Word became flesh," means, however, that the Word became specific, concrete, and particular in the person of Jesus, a definite revelation valid for all time. The interpretative principles, however, never admit the possibility that the eternal Word of God can become incarnate with specific and eternally valid claims. Rather than a particular revelation, the principles envision a series of partial "incarnations," each the expression of a plan, a plan that ultimately has no particular content since the particulars of each partial revelation give way to new particulars occasioned by new circumstances. In this way the "plan" never really takes flesh once and for all as in the true incarnation of the Word. That is docetism.

Finally, as a corollary to the trinitarian and Christological distortions, the New York hermeneutic claims that the Church has the authority to rewrite the revelation in Jesus Christ since the Church is the final chapter in an unfolding cumulative revelation. In this way, the Church becomes her own Lord.

Commentary on the Commentary

My next step is to quote extensively from the New York document, justifying my assessment of its underlying theology and commenting upon it. I begin with the Commentaries on the Principles, and then return to the Principles themselves. The first commentary is by Tobias Haller.

Haller begins by stating that God has a plan for the whole of humanity. This "plan or strategy" is "outside of time" and "eternal." At the same time, however, God acts in time to reveal and carry out the plan. "God's will is eternal but his acts are temporal." As God acts in time, he adapts his plan to new circumstances, so that God's acts are never "fixed" or "lifeless." In fact, from a human point of view, it can be said that God "changes his mind" in light of new conditions. Taking a image from the Exodus, Haller comments, "Indeed, God forbids the substitution of fixed and lifeless forms (idols) for the dynamic, vital and mobile presence of God in their midst as flame and pillar of smoke, free to descend upon and depart from the holy habitation as he chooses."

Further, God expects his people "to grow and change in relation to him," and this growth implies that human beings partially determine the content of the divine purpose in each new circumstance. For example, Adam decided if Eve was right for him, the Mosaic Law may have been composed of fixed letters but it was "imbued with a living spirit as the people of God engage in understanding it," God changed his mind as he distributed the Promised Land among the tribes, "Jesus expanded and reinterpreted the Mosaic Law," and "Acts and the Pauline epistles show us the Church engaged in this same process of reinterpretation . . . " Given that Scripture describes how God and his people continuously adapt the eternal plan to new circumstances, Haller will end by saying,

To attempt to turn the Scriptures themselves into an unchanging "thing" rather than approaching them as the story and song and case history of which they largely consist, is to come very close to a form of idolatry. The Scripture, like the Sabbath, exists for the good of the people of God, and it is they who have the right to engage it and understand it in each succeeding generation.

As presented by Haller, and by the report in general, Father, Son, and Spirit, and their external acts of creation, incarnation, and Church, are not properly distinguished and given their appropriate relations.(1) According to the New York hermeneutic, all divine acts creation, Law, Prophets, Jesus, the Apostles, and the Church are seen as moments of an evolving process in which the one plan is constantly adapted to new circumstances. For example, within the document as a whole, there is no consideration as to how the revelation in Jesus Christ is the definitive norm by which the Spirit works to conform the Church to the Lord Jesus. For orthodoxy, the Word who reveals the Father is prior to the Spirit who creates the Church. This can be seen in the Creed where the article on the Spirit and the Church comes after the articles on the Father and the Son. Or, to put it another way, Pentecost comes after Good Friday and Easter because the work of the Spirit forming the Church depends upon the prior work of Christ. As a result, the Church as created by the Spirit is bound by the prior revelation in Jesus Christ. Such relationships are missing in Haller. For Haller, the Spirit does not conform the Church to the prior revelation of Jesus Christ the Word. Rather, the Spirit in the Church does what Christ the Word did, both modifying and expanding past revelations in light of new circumstances. In this way, God the Son who became incarnate in Jesus Christ is blended with God the Holy Spirit who forms the Church.

Nor is there any real distinction between creation and incarnation. It is simply assumed that Adam and Christ are doing the same thing both are elements in an ongoing historical emergence. Each modifies what came before. Incarnation is really no different from creation since incarnation is simply an aspect of creation's creative advance. In this way the distinction between the Father who creates and the Son who became incarnate is erased. The same is true for Spirit. The Spirit's work is an aspect of creation's creative advance. The blending of Father, Son, and Spirit, and the merging of their appropriate external works, is modalism.

Further, according to the New York hermeneutic, God the Word never becomes incarnate, final, and definitive. Rather, God is always "dynamic, vital and mobile," "free to descend upon and depart from the holy habitation as he chooses." As described by the report, this is the nature of God's presence, and therefore, if God is "present" in this "mobile" fashion, he was present in Jesus Christ with the same mobility. This implies that God the Word was "free to descend upon and depart" from the man Jesus "as he chooses." Of course, Haller never says that God the Word freely descended and departed from the man Jesus. But he does define the nature of God's presence, a presence that is mobile, freely descending and departing, and if this be true, then God was "mobile" in Christ, implying that he was never really incarnate in Jesus Christ. As a result, Jesus' words and deeds cannot have eternal validity, for if they did, this would limit God's ongoing revelation to "fixed and lifeless forms (idols)." This is the docetic element.

Finally, when it is said that "each succeeding generation" has the "right to engage" and "understand" Scripture, it must be understood that this engagement is of the type previously described. That is, each generation has the right to do what Jesus and the Apostles did, namely, to expand, discontinue, and modify previous revelation. This gives the Church the same authority as Christ and the apostles themselves.

Of course, Haller never really draws these obvious conclusions. He never says that God the Word was "free to descend upon and depart" from the man Jesus. That would be too obvious. He does, however, paint a picture. According to that picture, God is never eternally bound to any specific earthly reality with the logical conclusion that God did not bind himself to the man Jesus. That is docetism. Nor does he say that he is a modalist. He simply sees creation, Jesus Christ, and the Spirit's work in the Church as one unfolding reality without their proper relations. Nor does he overtly claim an authority equal to Christ and the disciples. He does, however, subsume Jesus' authority to modify the Old Testament, and the Church's authority to modify Scripture, under one category the ongoing adaptive work of God and his people.

Irenaeus Misused

In a second commentary, and drawing on Irenaeus' Against Heresies, Richard Norris describes the eternal plan of God in terms of "economy." He rightly recognizes that Irenaeus fought against the Gnostics who maintained Scripture was the work of several gods. Against this, Irenaeus claimed that Scripture spoke of one God the God of creation, of Moses and the prophets, the Father of Jesus Christ. Since the same God was revealed throughout Scripture, Irenaeus had to address how this one God could have differing revelations in both Old and New Testaments. As a solution, Irenaeus advanced the idea of economy. By "economy" or "dispensation," Irenaeus meant that God had one eternal plan and that this plan was worked out in differing ways under differing conditions. Norris uses this idea to advance his claim that God continuously adapts his plan to ever new circumstances. As reference, he offers three quotations from Irenaeus, two sentences and a bit of a paragraph. Then, after quoting Irenaeus, Norris ends his commentary with these words.

On this view the divine "plan" is governed by a single, unchanging aim that is pursued and effected by means adapted to the changing circumstances and the relative maturity, Irenaeus would say of those to whom God is revealed by the Word. Or, to put the matter in another way, God's salvific activity seeks one end for all but "fits" itself to the circumstances of those whose liberty it seeks to turn to love of God and neighbor. There is a certain relativism indeed an historical relativism implicit in the very idea of God's "household management" of the cosmos, and hence different circumstances may call for changed modes of obedience to the Word who speaks the same truth in a variety of adaptations for the sake of its utility to human creatures whose circumstances and understanding themselves change.

Essentially, Norris has seized upon one idea in Irenaeus, isolated it from the rest of his thought, and used it to insinuate something that Irenaeus would deny. It is true that Irenaeus does make use of the concept of economy, but not as the committee envisions.(2) In fact, in opposition to the New York report, Irenaeus made a number of claims.

First, unlike the New York committee's claim that there are "many different and successive 'economies,'" Irenaeus believed there were only two real economies, the old and new covenants as narrated in the Old and New Testaments.(3) Irenaeus made this claim against two opponents. On the one hand, there was Marcion and those who claimed a single economy of love. On the other hand, there were the Gnostics who, like the New York committee, claimed a number of dispensations. In fact, the Gnostics applied the idea of economy to Jesus himself, calling him the "dispensational Jesus," that is, a Christ who manifested only a partial revelation. Similarly, covertly, the New York hermeneutic sees Christ as a partial revelation, a moment in the unfolding process of God continuously adapting the plan to new circumstances.(4)

Secondly, for Irenaeus, the new covenant in Jesus Christ is the final, complete, definite, and eternally valid covenant. In fact, Irenaeus fought to preserve the integrity of the biblical revelation against the Gnostics who distorted the biblical message. Against the Gnostics, he claimed the regula, the proto creedal way of interpreting Scripture that was given by Jesus to the apostles, and from them to the bishops. For us today, this understanding of Scriptures is formulated in the Creeds and guides the right interpretation of Scripture. The Gnostics used their heretical picture of God to reach conclusions on faith and morals utterly at odds orthodox biblical faith. This is the strategy of the New York hermeneutic, and Irenaeus would immediately recognize that their heretical view of God as applied to Scripture could not result in Christian truth. This is the critical fact, the reason why the New York hermeneutic must be analyzed theologically. When Scriptures is interpreted in light of an heretical view of God, it will not yield truth, but error and death. The matter is serious.(5)

Thirdly, Irenaeus had a very strong doctrine of the Word becoming flesh. In Jesus Christ, the human race was redeemed from sin and its corruption. Because of sin, the whole self, including the body, became corrupted. Christ redeemed the whole self, the body as well. In that context, the modern concept of sexual orientation would make perfect sense to Irenaeus. He would consider certain orientations to be an inheritance from Adam's fall, and he would also claim that all unholy orientations are bodily redeemed in Christ.(6)

Further, Irenaeus believed that Christ spoke to and through Moses and the prophets. This is because Irenaeus understood Jesus Christ as the Word of God, and when God spoke to the Moses and the prophets, he addressed them as Jesus Christ though in a hidden and imperfect fashion. As a result, certain portions of the Mosaic law were done away with in Christ, but other portions, what he called "natural law," were maintained by Christ.(7) This "natural law" is what the Prayer Book calls the "moral law." (Article VII, p. 869) It binds eternally. Irenaeus makes this distinction. Norris does not, and for a very good reason. Norris wants to abolish the particular content of Old Testament moral law so that morals can be defined as docetic abstractions and interpreted progressively, i.e., modalistically.

Finally, against Marcion, Irenaeus refused to believe that the essence of biblical law, including the laws governing morality, could be reduced to the concept of love apart from the specific requirements of the law itself. Rather, he believed that the two fold commandment to love God and neighbor fulfilled the true intent of the Old Testament Law by calling believers to keep the moral law from a pure heart rather than by the compulsion of external commandments.(8) By contrast the New York report insinuates that the essence of the law is love, where love is worked out in circumstances apart from specific enduring commands. In this sense the report arrives at Marcion's position: the essence of the biblical moral law is love, the rest can be abandoned.

Hooker Misused

Next, in order of appearance, the committee quotes Hooker on the mutability of law. Like Irenaeus, Hooker believed that certain laws were mutable. Unlike the committee, however, he did not insinuate that all specific laws were mutable. Nor would he claim that the only immutable laws are general laws like the two fold commandment to love. For Hooker, the moral law, the Law of Nature, is valid for all time, from creation to eschaton, and the moral law is both general and particular.

The first principles of the Law of Nature are easy; hard it were to find men ignorant of them. But concerning the duty which Nature's law doth require at the hands of men in a number of things particular, so far hath the natural understanding even of sundry whole nations been darkened, that they have not discerned no not gross iniquity to be sin. . . . how should our festered sores be cured, but that God hath delivered a law [Scripture] as sharp as the two edged sword, piercing the very closest and most unsearchable corners of the heart, which the Law of Nature can hardly, human laws by no means possible, reach unto? I,xii,2.

First principles of the moral law would be things such as love others as you would be loved, or defer immediate gratification for long term benefit. Along with homosexuality, Hooker lists inhospitality and robbery as particular sins that whole nations have failed to perceive.

In a separate essay on sexual ethics and Hooker, I footnote the above references to Hooker. I also reach conclusions directly at odds with the theology, approach, and implied results of the committee's report. I would recommend my essay to the reader, found on this web site. The committee should not be quoting Hooker. He does not validate their approach. As in Irenaeus, they have picked out one idea and used it to fortify conclusions that Hooker would not countenance.

Principle Eight

In the next commentary, Haller discusses Principle 8, the heart of the New York hermeneutic. He begins by quoting it to the effect that it is "insufficient simply to condemn those things that are condemned somewhere in Scripture, or to approve those things that are somewhere approved." He then makes the following comment,

This insufficiency is evident in that the Church has come to oppose or forbid acts mandated or tolerated in Scripture, and to allow acts or behaviors forbidden there. Examples of the former include levirate marriage and polygamy; examples of the latter include remarriage after divorce and intercourse during menstruation. There is scant unanimity within the universal Church on most of these matters nor on the Canon of Scripture itself. So when a national or particular Church makes a judgment, it should have confidence in its competent authority to do so, tempered by the humility to acknowledge that it might be mistaken. In the absence of any universal and authoritative body representing all the baptized, all decisions of particular Churches can only have authority within those particular Churches. Finally, even if there were such a universal synod, it might still err.

The premiss that there is "scant uniformity" in Scripture and Church on "most of these issues" cannot be accepted. There is "scant uniformity" in the "Canon of Scripture" if Scripture is read as an unfolding revelation with all parts progressively giving way to future revelations. When Scripture is read from an orthodox trinitarian and Christological perspective, it has something definite to say on such matters as levirate marriage, polygamy, and divorce and remarriage.

To begin with, Jesus Christ is the incarnate Word of God on earth. His words and deeds are binding for all time. As such, he is the center of Scripture and the whole must be seen in light of him. Therefore, in light of his celibacy, his living and teaching a kingdom present in but not of this world, and his locating marriage in the context of creation (the union of one man and one woman), Scripture as a whole reveals that polygamy and levirate marriage are no longer valid. These modifications of the Old Testament revelation are not the result of God changing his mind, nor are they the result of the Church freely adapting the moral law to new circumstances. The changes are rooted in the revelation in Jesus Christ who proclaimed God's original intent as found in Genesis one and two.

Secondly, in regard to divorce and remarriage, both Scripture and the Church's tradition make distinctions. These distinctions are rooted in the narrative trinitarian and incarnational character of the biblical revelation and the fact of human sin.(9) Scripture and tradition distinguish between the perfect as revealed in the teachings and life of Jesus, the less than perfect yet sometimes permitted as a result of sin, and finally, the less than perfect and never permitted. In the first category there is Jesus' teaching on non-violence as in turning the other cheek, utter generosity as in selling one's possessions and giving to the poor, complete service of others to such an extent that one becomes the least, no taking of oaths, and sexual activity only within life long marriage. In the second category there is violence as in acceptance of war as the lesser of two evils, accumulation as in private property and wealth, coercive power as in all government both secular and religious, the taking of oaths, and divorce and remarriage. In the third category, less than perfect and not permitted, there are such matters as idolatry, human sacrifice, adultery, and homosexuality. Both the Old Testament and Church have permitted behaviors of the second category and rejected behaviors of the third category. Given the revelation in Jesus Christ, however, the Church has held to a higher norm than the Old Testament, seen in its rejection of certain Old Testament norms, or in the development of monastic movements with their vows of poverty, chastity, and obedience, movements which directly reflect the perfect as lived and taught by Christ.

Contrary to the New York report, it is not the case that the Church has suddenly and rightfully overthrown the teachings of Jesus and decided that divorce and remarriage are right and good. Divorce and remarriage are not right and good. To believe this is to reject the clear teaching of Christ. As soon as the Church abandons the authority of Jesus Christ as revealed in Scripture, it is no longer the Church. Nor is it the case, as insinuated by the committee report, that the Church has never allowed divorce and remarriage. The Church has always allowed divorce and remarriage. One only need think of Henry VIII. Henry got an annulment, a fiction to allow divorce and remarriage. The Church has always worked with people under difficult circumstances, and divorce and remarriage can sometimes be the lesser of two evils, the result of hardness of heart. But the tradition of the Church has not been to approve of divorce, or to claim that divorce is acceptable and good. Nor has the Church, until recently, claimed it had the authority to abolish the clear teaching of Christ by naming something as good when Christ said otherwise.

ECUSA has made divorce and remarriage canonically easier, but ECUSA cannot abolish the teaching of Jesus and proclaim divorce and remarriage as morally acceptable in and of itself. The New York report insinuates that ECUSA has made such a pronouncement, and therefore, it has the right to supersede Scripture and proclaim other behaviors moral and right in and of themselves. If this be true, it is the end of the Church. Further, it may well be that the Church has erred in relaxing the canons governing divorce and remarriage. If it has erred, it has no right to err again by making theological and moral errors of the gravest consequence. The theological error would be to insinuate that revelation goes beyond the Word of God in Scripture, and therefore, the Church can do what Jesus did, stand above prior revelation. And that is exactly the intent of the New York hermeneutic.

In regard to intercourse during menstruation, I do not think that Scripture as a whole, or the tradition, have felt the matter worthy of extended examination.

Haller now gives two examples of "regulations recorded in Scripture, which nonetheless were later rejected on the authority of the Church. The first is a prohibition that has come to be ignored; the second a mandate that has been condemned." These examples are the eating of blood and slavery. Haller's purpose at this point, and all along the line, is to show that the Church has the authority to supersede Scripture.

In regard to the eating of blood, I will essentially accept the matter as discussed by Haller. He points out that the Western and Eastern Churches disagree on the eating of blood. The Eastern Church has unheld the regulations of the apostles (Acts 15:20), while the Western Church has held that such regulations were only temporary due to the presence of Jews in the Church. Once the Church became predominately Gentile, the regulations were no longer needed. The only conclusion to be drawn from this treatment is that, at least on this matter, the tradition has interpreted Scripture in at least two different ways. This implies that the prohibition against eating blood is not a "prohibition that has come to be ignored." One part of the Church continued to uphold it. The other part did not ignore it, but judged it a temporary injunction. There are, of course, other "prohibitions" that have not been "ignored" by both East and West. Haller ignores those.

The next section, on slavery, would require another essay. A few comments are, however, in order. Haller begins by stating that the "institution of chattel slavery is mandated in the Hebrew Scriptures and tolerated in the New Testament." Nowhere, as far as I know, does Scripture ever mandate that anyone own slaves, although certain forms of slavery were allowed. In fact, the heart of the Old Testament revelation was the liberation from slavery in Egypt. For this reason, there were strict limits on the owning of Hebrew slaves. Among other things, if they wished, Hebrew slaves were to be set free after a given period of time. Secondly, the Genesis creation accounts, in contrast to the myths of the surrounding cultures, placed no intervening hierarchy between God and humanity. This hierarchy was used, in Egypt and Mesopotamia for example, to justify slavery. Without the hierarchy, all persons are equal before God and each other. Thirdly, Jesus did not abolish slavery as a worldly or political institution, but within his Kingdom and among his disciples, those in authority were to be servants. Fourth, when the gospel became universal, and not simply a Hebrew religion, the impetus to abolish slavery, similar to the limits on slavery among Hebrews, became pronounced. Slavery was an inheritance of the Roman economic system, but by the end of the late medieval period, slavery was essentially eliminated in Christian Europe. It was the Discoveries and the need for labor that led to the reinstitution of slavery. Finally, to be blunt about it, it is a naive "first world" prejudice to think that slavery is now considered morally wrong. Rather, the economic system has changed, and changed drastically, so that earlier forms of slavery are scarcely needed. A new form, international market slavery, has emerged. The market itself forces people all over the world to work at the most wretched wages. To say that the Church has now realized that slavery is wrong is to completely misconstrue the realities of the world in which we live.(10)

For these reasons it is not the case that slavery is a biblical "mandate that has been condemned." Due to hardness of heart, portions of Scripture tolerate slavery, but it does not "mandate" slavery. By creation, Exodus, and Christ, it is abolished. Nor is slavery an example of "regulations recorded in Scripture, which nonetheless were later rejected on the authority of the Church." Rather, the Church is so miserably sinful that it has failed to grasp the nature of slavery in our time.

The final paragraph of the New York hermeneutic reveals its purpose: "The morality of homosexual acts, and the even further removed ecclesiastical issues of the ordination of homosexual Christians or the blessing of their relationships, are not readily 'settled' through the simple application of a handful of texts. The Scriptures tell us little about ordination or marriage, and even less about homosexuality." Be that as it may, far more than sex is at stake in this hermeneutic. If anything, the report makes it apparent that error creates error, error of the gravest sort. In this case, the Church is being asked to countenance a way of interpreting Scripture that reduces it to an artifact rather than the eternal and binding Word of God. If followed, it will be the death of the Church.

A Commentary on the Thirteen Interpretative Principles

In this section I will now quote, apart from their footnotes, the thirteen principles of the New York hermeneutic. After each of them, I will add comments that reveal their underlying theology to be both modalistic and docetic with the consequence that the Church can stand above Christ.

1. The Holy Scriptures of the Old and New Testaments are "the Word of God" and "contain all things necessary to salvation." They are called the Word of God by the household of faith, not because God dictated the biblical text, but because the Church believes that God inspired its human authors through the Holy Spirit and because by means of the inspired text, read within the sacramental communion of the Church, the Spirit of God continues the timely enlightenment and instruction of the faithful.

Comment: The four gospels, Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John were all composed by "human authors." How their inspired witness to the incarnate Word differs from the "timely enlightenment and instruction of the faithful" is left unexamined. This allows the work of God the Son in Incarnation to be blended with the work of the Spirit forming the Church. This is the modalistic impulse. Further, although the principle uses the phrase "the Word of God," it does not claim that Scripture is eternally binding due to its center being the incarnate Word of God in Jesus Christ. Rather, it covertly reduces incarnation to general inspiration, the work of inspired "human authors," and thereby relativizes the revelation in Christ. This is docetic.

2. The Holy Scriptures are the primary constitutional text of the Church. They provide the basis and guiding principles for our common life with God, and they do so through narrative, law, prophecy, poetry, and other forms of expression. Indeed, the Scriptures are themselves an instrument of the Church's shared communion with Jesus Christ, the living Word of God, who uses them to constitute the Church as a Body of many diverse members, participating together in his own word, wisdom, and life.

Comment: This principle mixes a bit of truth with a heavy dose of disguised error. It begins by saying that Scripture is the "primary constitutional text of the Church." This is true. Nevertheless, the Scriptures are not "primary" in terms of authoritative revelation because there is another authority which supersedes them, the "living Word of God" who uses Scripture so that the Church may participate in his "own word, wisdom, and life." The text does not say that Scripture is a normative, eternally binding, particular revelation which binds the Church. The "living Word" merely uses Scripture along with other sources, namely, the "many diverse members" who are participating in "his own word, wisdom, and life." This "word, wisdom, and life" is the eternal plan which exists beyond time yet is progressively revealed by the "living Word" to the church which then has the freedom to do what Christ did, that is, to modify, expand, or supersede previous revelations, including Scripture. In this way, the "living Word" in the Church is blended with the incarnate Word revealed in Scripture, both being elements of a cumulative revelatory advance. This exemplifies the modalistic impulse.

Further, Scripture is not understood as giving dogmatic or moral particulars, rights and wrongs that bind for all time. Rather, Scripture gives "guiding principles." These guiding principles are then expressed "through narrative, law, prophecy, poetry, and other forms of expression." This is docetic in that the principles are expressed, rather than seeing Scripture as God's divine will becoming incarnate and definite in the person of Christ. Indeed, as the report makes clear, it is assumed that the "living Word" takes the "guiding principles" of Scripture and gives them new meanings, and that these new meanings may contradict the specific revelation of the incarnate Word of Scripture. These contradictions are possible since Scripture doesn't reveal the specific will of God, only the docetic "guiding principles."

3. The Scriptures, as "God's Word Written," bear witness to, and their proper interpretation depends upon, the paschal mystery of God's Word incarnate, crucified and risen. Although the Scriptures are a manifestly diverse collection of documents representing a variety of authors, times, aims, and forms, the Church received and collected them, and from the beginning has interpreted them for their witness to an underlying and unifying theme: the unfolding economy of salvation, as brought to fulfillment in Jesus Christ. . . . "You search the Scriptures because you think that in them you have eternal life; and it is they that bear witness to me." John 5:39

Comment: Proper interpretation does depend upon the "mystery of God's Word incarnate, crucified and risen." Again, modalistically, the question of how the incarnate Word known in Scripture relates to the action of the risen Lord is left unexamined. This allows the Church to claim the risen Christ as its source for new interpretations. Further, rather than specific moral or doctrinal content that eternally binds, the underlying and unifying message of Scripture is a "theme." This docetic theme is constant, outside of time, but the economy of its particular expressions are "unfolding," both within Scripture and beyond as the total temporal process is "brought to fulfillment in Jesus Christ." This implies that present insights are superior to past ones since the risen Christ unfolds the continuing revelation toward its final fulfillment. As a result the Church has the freedom to adapt the biblical theme to the new circumstances of each generation.

The word "me" in John 5:39 is used to refer to the risen Christ, and not to Jesus Christ as known in the gospel of John. This use of John 5:39 covertly undermines the idea that decisive revelation occurs in Scripture, and favors the idea that real revelation is given in the paschal mystery of the risen Christ working in the Church today. This places the Church over the Christ of Scripture.

4. The Scriptures both document and narrate not only God's saving acts but also the manifold human responses to them, revealing that God's unchanging purpose to redeem is fulfilled, not by means of a coercive, deterministic system, but through a divine plan compassionately respectful of human freedom, adapted to changing historical circumstances, cultural situations, and individual experience and need. In reading the diverse texts of Holy Scripture, the Church seeks an ever growing comprehension of this plan and of the precepts and practices whereby believers may respond more faithfully to it, walking in the way of Christ.

Comment: Since the eternal purpose is constantly adapted to new circumstances, "individual experience and need" become a significant factor in the unfolding revelation. As the final paragraph of this document makes clear, one "individual experience and need" will rank high on the committee's agenda, that of homosexual persons. Further, the comprehension of the divine plan is "ever growing," with the implication that contemporary insights into the divine plan are superior to past insights. Believers are then able to respond "more faithfully" since their present knowledge is obviously superior to past knowledge, including the knowledge of God's will revealed in Jesus Christ. Further, the faithful respond to a "way," "the way of Christ." They do not respond to specific biblical moral injunctions or doctrinal claims, but discern the "way" of the risen Christ under new circumstances. This is the docetic element. Scripture maps the first leg of this way, but further stages are traversed by ever more faithful generations. These generations stand over Christ since they enjoy an "ever growing comprehension" beyond what Christ once knew. The Scriptures are diverse since they give partial insights into the eternal purpose, a purpose which admits of no specific expression. The modalistic element is reflected in the fact that revelation is continuous and progressive, the docetic element because the "unchanging purpose" is ever adapted to new circumstances, reducing Jesus Christ the incarnate Word to but one moment in an evolving revelation.

5. The New Testament itself interprets and applies the texts of the Old Testament as pointing to and revealing the Christ. Thus, the revelation of God in Christ is the key to the Church's understanding of the Scriptures as a whole.

Comment: This is true. The mixing of true statements with implicit error, giving it the appearance of plausibility, is the one of the defining characteristics of this document. It must be said, however, that the "revelation of God in Christ" is not used by the committee to understand "Scriptures as a whole." In fact, how God was present in Christ is never differentiated from how God was present in the "flame and pillar of smoke" of the Exodus, nor from his presence in the Church.

6. Individual texts must not, therefore, be isolated and made to mean something at odds with the tenor or trajectory of the divine plan underlying the whole of Scripture. The Church has no right "so [to] expound one place of Scripture, that it be repugnant to another."

Comment: Another apparent truth, but note that the essence of Scripture is "the tenor or trajectory of the divine plan underlying the whole of Scripture." The word "tenor" introduces the docetic element since it strips revelation of its concrete aspects in favor of disincarnate "guiding principles." The term "trajectory" does so as well, since it implies an initial direction, but once the object has left its point of origin, it is free to be affected by new conditions. Those new conditions would be the decisions of the Church, an authority never clearly distinguished from the authority of Christ given in Scripture. That is the modalistic instinct.

7. It must be concluded that the words of a scriptural text or texts, however compelling, may not in every circumstance be received by the Church as authoritative. Even if the Church has no authority to abrogate "commandments which are called Moral" unlike its jurisdiction in "ceremonies and rites" the true moral significance of any commandment is not simply given but must be discerned.

Comment: All scriptural texts have authority. Some of them are superseded by other texts, but all shed light on the message, both general and particular, of Scripture. For example, the ancient Israelite sacrificial system no longer binds Christians since it was completed by Christ on the cross. But passages describing Israel's sacrificial system do shed light on the sacrifice of Christ, and therefore, they have authority. The "moral significance of any commandment is not simply given but must be discerned" since biblical morals are never final or definitive. They are only the first stage of a trajectory that extends into the present, and therefore, the contemporary significance must be "discerned." The term "moral significance" introduces the docetic element, since meaning is not given in the particulars of any moral commandment, but lies beyond the particulars in the plan whose particular meaning must be "discerned." The term "discerned" also introduces the modalistic element.

8. Thus, for the Church's judgment of the morality of actions and dispositions to be authoritative, it is insufficient simply to condemn those things that are condemned somewhere in Scripture, or to approve those things that are somewhere approved.

Comment: The Church has always believed this, but not because all biblical moral judgments are incomplete expressions of an eternal plan whose concrete expressions evolve. Rather, as described elsewhere in this essay, Scripture must be understood in a trinitarian and christological fashion with the result that certain Old Testament commandments are abolished in Christ, others maintained, others modified, and still others made more rigorous. Statement 8 does not make these distinctions because the aim of this essay is to insinuate that all commandments can be reinterpreted modalistically as expressions of docetic principles. Principle 8 states a truth, that certain biblical commands no longer bind, but this does not imply that all biblical commands no longer bind. At this point in the essay we are in the realm of "sleigh of hand." Further, and this is critical, the real purpose of principle 8 is to assert that the Church has the right to approve behaviors that are condemned by Scripture, or to deny moral actions affirmed by Scripture. Principle 8 is the essence of the committee report.

9. Faithful interpretation requires the Church to use the gifts of "memory, reason, and skill" to find the sense of the scriptural text and to locate it in its time and place. The Church must then seek the text's present significance in light of the whole economy of salvation. Chief among the guiding principles by which the Church interprets the sacred texts is the congruence of its interpretation with Christ's Summary of the Law and the New Commandment, and the creeds.

Comment: Biblical texts must be located in "time and place" because their specific and original meaning is locked to that time and place and nowhere else. In other words, whatever happened in Christ was only valid for that "time and place," i.e., it wasn't the eternal Word that became incarnate so that his specific words and deeds have eternal validity. As a result, the real content of Scripture is the docetic "sense of the scriptural text," with the implication that the only things of enduring "significance" are docetic abstractions which find new expressions according to the "light of the whole economy of salvation." Here the docetic and modalistic elements are quite neatly blended.

Against Irenaeus, the report does not believe that the Summary of the Law sums up and preserves certain portions of the concrete, particular Old Testament Law. Rather than a summary, Jesus' two fold command to love God and neighbor is a cipher for the docetic theme of love which finds new expressions under new circumstances. The creeds have always guided the right interpretation of Scripture, but they have no place in the committee report since the theology of this report is heretical in regard to both Trinity and Christology.

10. The Church's interpretation of Scripture is itself part of the human response to the economy of salvation, an essential means whereby the Christian faithful understand God's actions in their lives and experience and therein know God's power and purpose to judge, redeem, liberate, and transform.

Comment: In light of the fact that the Church is constituted by Scripture and the "living Word of God," and that the Spirit provides "timely enlightenment and instruction," it is only logical that the "lives and experience" of the faithful would be modalistically blended with Scripture as God's authoritative Word. This places the Church over Scripture. Along with love, "judge, redeem, liberate, and transform," are added as docetic abstractions which evolve with time.

11. Yet precisely because the Church's members are human, their reading of Scripture is contingent and fallible, even in matters of faith and morals. In reading its Scriptures, the historical Church remains always a wayfaring community using discernment, conversation, and argument to find its way.

Comment: It is true, the Church is fallible and contingent, even in matters of faith and morals. There are, however, certain moral and dogmatic claims that have been made by the universal Church for nearly two thousand years. They need to be given great, great weight. In spite of appearances, orthodoxy and the moral tradition have no real significance for the New York hermeneutic. The Church is a "wayfaring community" in contrast to an obedient community since it is finding "its way," rather than being obedient to the eternal commands of its Lord and Savior Jesus Christ. Like the terms "tenor" and "trajectory, " the terms "wayfaring community" and "its way," contain modalistic and docetic elements.

12. Interpretative security rests not in an indefectible community or infallible magisterium but in the tested deposit of the baptismal faith and, above all, in the covenant God who is faithful to a people who err.

Comment: Ostensibly, these are true statements. Their underlying implication, however, is that the faithful God will correct past errors as the "unfolding" revelation is "brought to fulfillment in Jesus Christ." As for the "tested deposit of the baptismal faith," the phrase has no real place in the committee's thought.

13. To affirm the "sufficiency of the Holy Scriptures for salvation" is to enlarge the sphere of human liberty by acknowledging limits upon what may be required in matters of faith and morals. Taken in this way, the Scriptures do not lose their authority but on the contrary fulfill their ultimate intent, which is to bring all people to the blessed liberty of the children of God, whose service is perfect freedom.

Comments: If accepted, the New York hermeneutic will certainly enlarge "the sphere of human liberty," due to the fact that it places the Church above the Lord Jesus Christ. This will lead at once to a slavery of the worse kind, the result of a reduction in "what may be required in matters of faith and morals." Two more abstractions are added to the docetic pile, "blessed liberty" and "perfect freedom."

What can be said about the committee's claim that the biblical message is constituted by a set of docetic abstractions whose content modalistically evolves with time? The Word of the Lord Jesus: "Heaven and earth will pass away, but my words will never pass away." Matthew 24:35

Endnotes

1. See chapter one of the Barth dissertation for a discussion of appropriation.

2. The brief quotations the committee uses are all taken from Against Heresies, Book 4, chapter 20, sections four through seven. The committee uses these quotations to drive home the idea that God acts with one purpose, but does so in "many different and successive 'economies' by which the Word makes God known."

A study of these four sections does not reveal that God is making use of "many different and successive" economies. Rather, God is essentially revealing himself in two economies, the old and new covenants. Further, and critically, the new covenant was complete and perfect in Jesus Christ and admits of no additions.

Near the beginning of section four Irenaeus states: "Now this is His Word, our Lord Jesus Christ, who in the last times was made a man among men, that He might join the end to beginning, that is, man to God." (IV,20,4) For Irenaeus, Jesus Christ recapitulated human history and brought it to an end in himself. That is why he appeared in the "last times," the "end" who reunited humanity to God as it had been in the beginning with Adam. For Irenaeus, revelation ended with Jesus Christ as known in Scripture. For the committee, Jesus is but a passing moment. The real end is now, the developing revelation given to the Church.

The committee refers to a portion of the following statement from Irenaeus,

For God is powerful in all things, having been seen at that time indeed, prophetically through the Spirit, and seen, too, adoptively through the Son; and He shall also be seen paternally in the kingdom of heaven, the Spirit truly preparing man in the Son of God, and the Son leading him to the Father, while the Father, too, confers [upon him] incorruption for eternal life, which comes to every one from the fact of his seeing God. IV,20,5

In this section Irenaeus is wrestling with the fact that certain biblical statements claim that God can be seen, while other passages state that God cannot be seen. He makes sense of it by saying that God the transcendent Father cannot be seen, but that he can be seen in the incarnate Son, "adoptively through the Son." Although the Old Testament prophets did not see the Son directly, they did see him in advance of his coming, that is, "prophetically through the Spirit." Further, God the Father will be seen in a new way in heaven, namely, "paternally in the kingdom of heaven." As that happens, the saved will be given "incorruption for eternal life," which is theirs by seeing God "paternally," that is, by seeing God the Father in heaven. In this picture, there are three dispensations, but only two of them have occurred the prophetic or Old Testament revelation and the new revelation in Jesus Christ. Or, prior to life in heaven, God can be seen in only two ways with only two economies.

After mentioning a fragment of this quotation, the committee then concludes that God is known "in three successive and different manners." This conclusion is followed by a longer quotation from Irenaeus which, among other things, states that the Word made God visible in "prophetic visions, and differences of charisms, and his own works of mediation, and the glorification of the Father, . . . " (IV,20,7) These phrases reflects Irenaeus' belief that there are only two fundamental dispensations, the Old Testament "prophetic visions" given by the differing "charisms" of the Spirit, and "his [Jesus'] own works of mediation" given in incarnation. The incarnation, however, gives a glimpse of the "glorification of the Father," the third and final vision of God in heaven.

As presented by the committee, however, these references from Irenaeus are used to claim that God's purpose is worked out in "many different and successive economies." This allows the committee to imply that God's decisive revelation is continuously unfolding beyond the revelation in Christ. This is utterly at odds with Irenaeus who, fundamentally, believes in only two economies. Further, as subsequent footnotes will make clear, Irenaeus is determined to show that the revelation in Jesus Christ is complete and final, and will remain so until the resurrection at the end of time.

At one point, Irenaeus does use the phrase "many dispensations," for he knows that God works in a variety of ways. This reference does not, however, detract from the fact that, for Irenaeus, all economies come to an end in Christ, and further, there are only two fundamental economies. When one reads the texts quoted by the New York report in context, this is obvious.

3. Although Irenaeus once mentions four covenants, he essentially believes in two covenants and uses a number of terms to designate and contrast them. He describes them as "law and gospel," Moses and Christ," and "old and new covenants." Here is a typical quotation out of a great many.

Now, without contradiction, He means by those things which are brought forth from the treasure new and old, the two covenants; the old, that giving of the law which took place formerly; and He points out as the new, that manner of life required by the Gospel, of which David says, "Sing unto the LORD a new song;" and Esaias, "Sing unto the LORD a new hymn. His beginning (initium), His name is glorified from the height of the earth: they declare His powers in the isles." And Jeremiah says: "Behold, I will make a new covenant, not as I made with your fathers" in Mount Horeb. But one and the same householder produced both covenants, the Word of God, our Lord Jesus Christ, who spake with both Abraham and Moses, and who has restored us anew to liberty, and has multiplied that grace which is from Himself. IV,9,1.

In the following quotation, Irenaeus mentions four covenants. The last one, that of Jesus Christ, is final and complete. It is complete because Christ, and this is Irenaeus' doctrine of recapitulation, sums up and completes all foregoing revelation. As a result, there is no revelation beyond Jesus Christ as revealed in Scripture and rightly interpreted by apostolic doctrine.

For the living creatures are quadriform, and the Gospel is quadriform, as is also the course followed by the Lord. For this reason were four principal (kaqolikai) covenants given to the human race: one, prior to the deluge, under Adam; the second, that after the deluge, under Noah; the third, the giving of the law, under Moses; the fourth, that which renovates man, and sums up all things in itself by means of the Gospel, raising and bearing men upon its wings into the heavenly kingdom. III,11,8.

4. For the Gnostics, the eternal could never become concrete, definite, and particular. As a result, they believed in a "dispensation Jesus." This is the intuition that underlies the New York report. For both the New York committee and the Gnostics, the divine is always out of reach, a "God above God." One can't help but think of Tillich. Here is Irenaeus,

Some [Gnostics] , however, make the assertion, that this dispensational Jesus did become incarnate, and suffered, whom they represent as having passed through Mary just as water through a tube; but others allege him to be the Son of the Demiurge, upon whom the dispensational Jesus descended; while others, again, say that Jesus was born from Joseph and Mary, and that the Christ from above descended upon him, being without flesh, and impassible. But according to the opinion of no one of the heretics was the Word of God made flesh. For if any one carefully examines the systems of them all, he will find that the Word of God is brought in by all of them as not having become incarnate (sine carne) and impassible, as is also the Christ from above. Others consider Him to have been manifested as a transfigured man; but they maintain Him to have been neither born nor to have become incarnate; whilst others [hold] that He did not assume a human form at all, but that, as a dove, He did descend upon that Jesus who was born from Mary. Therefore the Lord's disciple, pointing them all out as false witnesses, says, "And the Word was made flesh, and dwelt among us. III, 11, 3.

The Gnostic idea that the "Christ from above" descended upon the man Jesus, or that the Word came "as a dove" upon Jesus, is substantially the committee's belief that God is "free to descend upon and depart from the holy habitation as he chooses." In the following quotation Irenaeus denies that there is a "God above God." If God were a God beyond any one particular revelation, the Church could freely embrace, to quote the New York report, a "historical relativism," giving it "confidence in its competent authority" to pursue "changed modes of obedience to the Word who speaks the same truth in a variety of adaptations."

But to allege that those things which are super celestial and spiritual, and, as far as we are concerned, invisible and ineffable, are in their turn the types of celestial things and of another Pleroma, and [to say] that God is the image of another Father, is to play the part both of wanderers from the truth, and of absolutely foolish and stupid persons. For, as I have repeatedly shown, such persons will find it necessary to be continually finding out types of types, and images of images, and will never [be able to] fix their minds on one and the true God. For their imaginations range beyond God, they having in their hearts surpassed the Master Himself, being indeed in idea elated and exalted above [Him], but in reality turning away from the true God. IV, 19, 1.

5. Against Heresies is divided into five books. Books one and two are descriptions of Gnostic doctrines. In Book three, Irenaeus begins his defence of the Christian faith and his refutation of Gnostic ideas. Since the Gnostics claimed to rightly interpret Scripture (the very issue at stake in the New York report), Irenaeus must defend the orthodox interpretation of Scripture. He makes two principal claims: First, the apostles did not preach a partial gospel, but a perfect and complete gospel. This complete and final gospel was recorded in Scripture as rightly interpreted by the Church. This is what the New York hermeneutic denies. It envisions an endless series of partial and cumulative revelations. Secondly, the right interpretation is found in the Church because Christ instructed his apostles on how to understand Scripture, and these apostles handed that right interpretation to their successors the bishops, and this interpretive tradition still lives in the Church. In fact, Irenaeus knew Polycarp who in turn knew those who had been with Jesus. Because of these links, Irenaeus was able to claim that the Church preserved the right way of interpreting the Christian faith. Irenaeus calls this right way of understanding the faith the tradition, the tradition of the apostles, faithfully handed down within the Church. Here is Irenaeus, speaking in the opening sections of Book III.

We have learned from none others the plan of our salvation, than from those through whom the Gospel has come down to us, which they did at one time proclaim in public, and, at a later period, by the will of God, handed down to us in the Scriptures, to be the ground and pillar of our faith. For it is unlawful to assert that they preached before they possessed "perfect knowledge," as some do even venture to say, boasting themselves as improvers of the apostles. III,1,1.

When, however, they [the Gnostics] are confuted from the Scriptures, they turn round and accuse these same Scriptures, as if they were not correct, nor of authority, and [assert] that they are ambiguous, and that the truth cannot be extracted from them by those who are ignorant of tradition. For [they allege] that the truth was not delivered by means of written documents, but viva voce: . . . III,2,1.

It is within the power of all, therefore, in every Church, who may wish to see the truth, to contemplate clearly the tradition of the apostles manifested throughout the whole world; and we are in a position to reckon up those who were by the apostles instituted bishops in the Churches, and [to demonstrate] the succession of these men to our own times; those who neither taught nor knew of anything like what these [heretics] rave about. III,3,1.

Once Irenaeus has described the importance of apostolic doctrine for interpreting Scripture, he then describes the doctrine itself and how the barbarians hold to it against all innovations. His description of the apostolic doctrine has clear affinities with the Apostles' Creed, both doubtless arising from the same "ancient tradition."

To which course many nations of those barbarians who believe in Christ do assent, having salvation written in their hearts by the Spirit, without paper or ink, and, carefully preserving the ancient tradition, believing in one God, the Creator of heaven and earth, and all things therein, by means of Christ Jesus, the Son of God; who, because of His surpassing love towards His creation, condescended to be born of the virgin, He Himself uniting man through Himself to God, and having suffered under Pontius Pilate, and rising again, and having been received up in splendor, shall come in glory, the Savior of those who are saved, and the Judge of those who are judged, and sending into eternal fire those who transform the truth, and despise His Father and His advent. Those who, in the absence of written documents, have believed this faith, are barbarians, so far as regards our language; but as regards doctrine, manner, and tenor of life, they are, because of faith, very wise indeed; and they do please God, ordering their conversation in all righteousness, chastity, and wisdom. If any one were to preach to these men the inventions of the heretics, speaking to them in their own language, they would at once stop their ears, and flee as far off as possible, not enduring even to listen to the blasphemous address. Thus, by means of that ancient tradition of the apostles, they do not suffer their mind to conceive anything of the [doctrines suggested by the] portentous language of these teachers, among whom neither Church nor doctrine has ever been established. III,4,2

Would that today the enlightened products of our institutions of higher learning were as wise as the illiterate barbarians of whom Irenaeus speaks.

Toward the end of his treatises, Irenaeus returns to the critical evidence against the Gnostics.

True knowledge is [that which consists in] the doctrine of the apostles, and the ancient constitution of the Church throughout all the world, and the distinctive manifestation of the body of Christ according to the successions of the bishops, by which they have handed down that Church which exists in every place, and has come even unto us, being guarded and preserved without any forging of Scriptures, by a very complete system of doctrine, and neither receiving addition nor [suffering] curtailment [in the truths which she believes]; and [it consists in] reading [the word of God] without falsification, and a lawful and diligent exposition in harmony with the Scriptures, both without danger and without blasphemy; and [above all, it consists in] the pre eminent gift of love, which is more precious than knowledge, more glorious than prophecy, and which excels all the other gifts [of God]. IV,33,8.

The committee bends over backward to emphasize that Scripture is ambiguous, a document in progress, the first stage of an unfolding revelation begun by the apostles but continued and developed by the Church. Irenaeus would consider this blasphemy. In his view, the apostles did not begin to preach until they had attained "perfect knowledge," the final, complete, and definitive revelation. Those who, like the Gnostics, argue that Scripture is an ambiguous document, or the first phase of a revelation in progress, have thereby made themselves the "improvers of the apostles."

Since the committee rejects the final and complete authority of Scripture, it relies on what Irenaeus calls the "viva voce," the living voice, given to the spiritual who have, to use a word from the New York report, reached "relative maturity." These claims are utterly at odds with Irenaeus who proclaimed Scripture as the "ground and pillar of our faith," a revelation based on "perfect knowledge."

From earliest times the "tradition of the apostles" or the "doctrine of the apostles" was given in the Rule of Faith, the creedal claims that provided the theological structure by which to make sense of the biblical revelation. Irenaeus claimed his interpretation of Scripture was the right because it conformed theologically to the Rule of Faith. By contrast, the picture of God painted by the Gnostics did not correspond to the doctrine of God found in the Rule. Eventually, the Rule of Faith developed into full blown Creeds, and it is the Creed, with its theological understanding of God, that gives the key to right interpretation of Scripture. Francis Young, in her Biblical Exegesis and the Formation of Christian Culture, describes these early developments as follows,

What has not been explicitly noted before is that all along creed like statements and confessions must in practice have provided the hermeneutical key to public reading of scripture before Irenaeus articulated this. (Young, Frances M. Biblical Exegesis and the Formation of Christian Culture, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1997, p. 18)

Thus, long before the formation of the canon of two Testaments, Old and New, or the listing of the authorized books that belonged to it, the unity of the Bible and its witness to Christ was the assumption underlying its "reception" by readers and hearers in the "public" assembly of the community. Irenaeus drew on this tradition and developed it in response to Marcion and the Gnostics. (p. 19)

Neither the Rule of Faith nor the creed was in fact a summary of the whole biblical narrative, as demonstrated earlier in The Art of Performance. They provided, rather, the proper reading of the beginning and the ending, the focus of the plot and the relations of the principal characters, so enabling the "middle" to be heard in bits as meaningful. They provided the "closure" which contemporary theory prefers to leave open. They articulated the essential hermeneutical key without which texts and community would disintegrate in incoherence. (p. 21)

Like the Gnostics, the New York report operates with a picture of God and reads Scripture from that point of view. Irenaeus would then ask, Is the picture of God implicit in the committee report consistent with the tradition, the rule of faith, the orthodoxy of the Creed? It is not.

6. These ideas are found throughout Irenaeus. Here is one reference among many.

For it is not one thing which dies and another which is quickened, as neither is it one thing Which is lost and another which is found, but the Lord came seeking for that same sheep which had been lost. What was it, then, which was dead? Undoubtedly it was the substance of the flesh; the same, too, which had lost the breath of life, and had become breathless and dead. This same, therefore, was what the Lord came to quicken, that as in Adam we do all die, as being of an animal nature, in Christ we may all live, as being spiritual, not laying aside God's handiwork, but the lusts of the flesh, and receiving the Holy Spirit; as the apostle says in the Epistle to the Colossians: "Mortify, therefore, your members which are upon the earth." And what these are he himself explains: "Fornication, uncleanness, inordinate affection, evil concupiscence; and covetousness, which is idolatry." The laying aside of these is what the apostle preaches; and he declares that those who do such things, as being merely flesh and blood, cannot inherit the kingdom of heaven. For their soul, tending towards what is worse, and descending to earthly lusts, has become a partaker in the same designation which belongs to these [lusts, viz., "earthly"], which, when the apostle commands us to lay aside, he says in the same Epistle, Cast ye off the old man with his deeds." But when he said this, he does not remove away the ancient formation [of man]; for in that case it would be incumbent on us to rid ourselves of its company by committing suicide." V,12,3

This quotation refers to the use the Gnostics made of Paul's distinction between spiritual and carnal persons. The Gnostics quoted Paul "flesh and blood cannot enter the Kingdom of Heaven" to mean that salvation meant putting aside the flesh. Against this, Irenaeus insisted that God had originally made the flesh good, so that the flesh is "God's handiwork," a part of humanity's "ancient formation." Because of sin, however, the whole person, including the flesh, became corrupted by such evils as "Fornication, uncleanness, inordinate affection, evil concupiscence; and covetousness, which is idolatry." Irenaeus describes these lusts, i.e., orientations, as belonging to the carnal or animal aspect of the created but fallen person. When the spiritual nature is followed, these carnal lusts are crucified so that the person, both flesh and blood, receives holiness of life. Therefore, the phrase "flesh and blood cannot enter the Kingdom of heaven" means that flesh and blood do not enter alone, apart from the sanctifying work of the Spirit. As the lusts of the flesh are crucified with Christ, the whole person, including the flesh, is made holy and thereby enters the Kingdom of God. This is how Irenaeus understood the matter. He would not accept the contemporary superstition that God's grace only extends to the mind or spirit, as if God cannot sanctify the body as well.

In light of this, the concept of orientation would made perfect sense to Irenaeus. Sinful orientations first occurred in Adam because of his sin, and from Adam, they entered the whole of the human race. But Christ reversed Adam's sin and believers inherit the holiness of life found in Christ. Therefore, Irenaeus will say that in "Adam we do all die, as being of an animal nature, in Christ we may all live, as being spiritual."

7. Among other places, these ideas are clearly worked out in chapters twelve and thirteen of Book IV. The quotation in the following footnote sums up the matter.

8. The following is found at IV,13,1.

And that the Lord did not abrogate the natural [precepts] of the law, by which man is justified, which also those who were justified by faith, and who pleased God, did observe previous to the giving of the law, but that He extended and fulfilled them, is shown from His words. "For," He remarks, "it has been said to them of old time, Do not commit adultery. But I say unto you, That every one who hath looked upon a woman to lust after her, hath committed adultery with her already in his heart." And again: "It has been said, Thou shalt not kill. But I say unto you, Every one who is angry with his brother without a cause, shall be in danger of the judgment." And, "It hath been said, Thou shalt not forswear thyself. But I say unto you, Swear not at all; but let your conversation be, Yea, yea, and Nay, nay." And other statements of a like nature. For all these do not contain or imply an opposition to and an overturning of the [precepts] of the past, as Marcion's followers do strenuously maintain; but [they exhibit] a fulfilling and an extension of them, as He does Himself declare: "Unless your righteousness shall exceed that of the scribes and Pharisees, ye shall not enter into the kingdom of heaven." For what meant the excess referred to? In the first place, [we must] believe not only in the Father, but also in His Son now revealed; for He it is who leads man into fellowship and unity with God. In the next place, [we must] not only say, but we must do; for they said, but did not. And [we must] not only abstain from evil deeds, but even from the desires after them. Now He did not teach us these things as being opposed to the law, but as fulfilling the law, and implanting in us the varied righteousness of the law. That would have been contrary to the law, if He had commanded His disciples to do anything which the law had prohibited. But this which He did command namely, not only to abstain from things forbidden by the law, but even from longing after them is not contrary to [the law], as I have remarked, neither is it the utterance of one destroying the law, but of one fulfilling, extending, and affording greater scope to it.

9. The ideas of this essay, especially the sections on Irenaeus, give insight into how a trinitarian and christological perspective leads to these distinctions. I have dicussed the matter in other essays found on this web site.

10. As long ago as 1786, Joseph Townsend, in his Dissertation on the Poor Laws, argued that the most effective way to ensure that the rentier class had labor for their shops and factories was to abolish the laws that provided food for the poor. Then, under the conditions of an emerging capitalism, hunger and the market, rather than the chain and whip, would supply the requisite coercion. Here is Townsend,

The poor know little of the motives which stimulate the higher ranks to action pride, honour, and ambition. In general it is only hunger which can spur and goad them on to labour; yet our laws have said, they shall never hunger. The law, it must be confessed, have likewise said that they shall be compelled to work. But then legal constraint is attended with too much trouble, violence, and noise; creates ill will, and never can be productive of good and acceptable service: whereas hunger is not only a peaceable, silent, unremitted pressure, but, as the most natural motive to industry and labour, it calls for the most powerful exertions; and, when satisfied by the free bounty of another, lays a lasting and sure foundation for good will and gratitude. (Joseph Townsend, A Dissertation on the Poor Laws, by Ashley Montagu, afterword by Mark Neuman. Berkeley: University of California Press, 1971, pp. 23 4.)

It seems to be a law of nature, that the poor should be to a certain degree improvident, that there may always be some to fulfill the most servile, the most sordid, and the most ignoble offices in the community. (p. 35)

According to Townsend, keeping the poor devoid of land and assets would force them to perform the "most servile, the most sordid, and the most ignoble" tasks required by the community. That is slavery. Furthermore, feeding the poor would only increase their numbers. Their population would increase, like goats introduced on an island (the example Townsend uses), to the limits of the food supply and reduce themselves and their benefactors to poverty. No, the best way to treat the poor is to keep them hungry, so that the "peaceable, silent, unremitted pressure" of hunger will drive them to work, even at the most miserable wages and under the most wretched of conditions. That is the world will live in today, entire countries where the poor live like dogs and work like slaves.

The Rev. Robert J. Sanders, Ph.D.
August, 2002