creation

Does faith just compensate for lacking evidence of a divine Creator?

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David R. Bickel

University of Ottawa
Ottawa Institute of Systems Biology
Department of Biochemistry, Microbiology and Immunology
Department of Mathematics and Statistics

 

July 31, 2020

Faith and evidence

While faith is important in multiple monotheistic religions, it meant everything to the orthodox Christianity of the first century. That is clear throughout its canonical documents. Consider these representative examples:

  • Jesus of Nazareth could only perform miracles among those with faith.1
  • He said everything is possible for whoever has faith when praying.2
  • A delay in answers to the prayers of the chosen is a test of their faith. 3
  • He reprimanded his disciples terrified by a life-threatening storm for their lack of faith. 4
  • Even more controversially, only those who had faith in Jesus as the prophesied Messiah and Son of God had eternal life.5

Why Christians put so much emphasis on faith is explained by the earliest catholic writings,6 the letters of Paul. The core teaching of Christianity was that Jesus, known as a shamefully executed criminal, atoned for the crimes all people have committed against their Creator, who signaled his acceptance of the atonement by physically raising Jesus from the dead.7

That message was astonishing enough to polarize people from the beginning. On one hand, Christians regarded that report as God’s promise of forgiveness that has the power to eternally save everyone having faith in it.8 To everyone else, the message appeared so foolish as to refute itself. The governing monotheists were repulsed by the idea that someone so obviously cursed by God would be the Messiah prophesied in their holy writings. Those schooled in Greek philosophy viewed religious concepts like prophecy, atonement, and bodily resurrection as primitive superstitions worthy only of disdain. While the more religious opponents of Christianity demanded a sign from God and more philosophical opponents demanded convincing arguments, Christians were content to put faith in the testimony of ordinary people claiming to speak on behalf of Jesus.9

Thus, neither type of opponent could find the kind of evidence that would have made Christianity credible to them. Christians, believing God gave them the faith needed to properly evaluate the evidence for the messianic claims of Jesus,10 in turn regarded unbelief as the epitome of sin and folly.

The contempt that leading intellectuals had for faith against human conceptions of evidence has continued to modern times. It has become popularized by atheistic scientists arguing as authorities on philosophy and religion. A widely quoted example expresses the topic of this essay:

Faith is the great cop-out, the great excuse to evade the need to think and evaluate evidence. Faith is belief in spite of, even perhaps because of, the lack of evidence.11

Christian faith in particular is considered not only an excuse for lacking evidence but also an unfair requirement:

How is it fair for God to have designed a world which gives such ambiguous testimony to his existence? How is it fair to have created a system where belief is the crucial piece, rather than being a good person? How is it fair to have created a world in which by mere accident of birth, someone who grew up Muslim can be confounded by the wrong religion?12

Objections against Christian faith appeal to emotion as well as to evidence. In the words of Charles Darwin,

I can indeed hardly see how anyone ought to wish Christianity to be true; for if so the plain language of the text seems to show that the men who do not believe, and this would include my Father, Brother and almost all my best friends, will be everlastingly punished. And this is a damnable doctrine.13

And why should that unpalatable teaching be entertained if faith is just a way to compensate for a lack of evidence? It will be argued that faith actually has another rationale, one that explains faith as a consequence of monotheism rather than a desperate attempt to defend it. In short, while faith does believe what would not be warranted by the evidence when it is weighed as if there were no Creator, faith in such a Creator would be needed if he in fact did exist.

Why the existence of a Creator would require faith in his words

According to traditional monotheism, the self-existent God created the universe from nothing. The Creator is completely distinct from the creation and yet loves it and sustains it.

If people are indeed created beings, then every ability they have is a free gift from their Creator. They cannot take credit for anything good, as if being created in a certain way were an earned wage.14 Rather, they received all their abilities as undeserved gifts.

What if people, in spite of having received such undeserved gifts, were to claim them as deserved wages? That would require denying their status as beings owing their very existence to their divine Creator. Unlike other false beliefs, that particular false belief would prevent them from having any meaningful knowledge of their loving Creator. That state of self-isolation from his love would by its nature have to separate them from the happiness and security of knowing his limitless love. They cannot enjoy his unmerited love as long as they insist on their own worthiness.

How would people come to know their divine Creator and his care for them? Only by using their created senses and reason to receive and believe the promises of his unending love. According to the earliest recorded Christian teachings, those testimonies come not only in the form of created gifts such as food15 but also in the form of messages from God spoken through prophets and through the witnesses Jesus sent to testify to all nations.16 Just as every divine command requires obedience, every divine promise requires faith, trust that God will keep the promises of his undeserved love and free gifts.17

If such a Creator exists, then to doubt one of his promises because it conflicts with human reasoning is to make the mistake of trusting fallible mental abilities more than the all-knowing Creator, who by his nature cannot lie. That is exactly how the beginning of the Hebrew Bible depicts the fall of humanity into error.18 Eve’s Creator gave her the fruit of every tree in the garden, even the tree of eternal life. The only exception was a single tree distinguished by God’s threat of death to whoever ate its fruit. Rather than receiving the tree of life as an undeserved gift, she took from the forbidden tree, seeing that its fruit was edible. Apart from her Creator’s threat, it looked like any other fruit-bearing tree. Excluding that threat from consideration, experience and inductive logic would have led her to the conclusion that its fruit, too, was satisfying and nutritious. She trusted her own senses and judgment instead of the word of her Maker.19

The way of self-reliance would have been commendable were there no freely giving Creator and thus no promise of fellowship with him. But supposing the existence such a promise-making Creator, the only reasonable response would be faith in his promises, irrespective of seemingly contrary evidence. For in that case, weighing all of the evidence would prohibit excluding the divine promises from consideration. When those promises are given weight in proportion to the truthfulness and power of the Creator, they become absolutely certain regardless of any finite amount of evidence pointing in another direction when considered alone.

Human inability to put faith solely in a Creator

Let’s then grant that if a divine Creator existed, faith in his promises would be fitting. But how are we supposed to actually believe that? Eve in a garden with a tree of life? Prophecy? Atonement by the sacrificial death of a man claiming to be God’s Son and the Savior of the world? The resurrection of his body a few days later? Not to mention that most of those believing in a divine Creator hope to earn rewards from him rather than to gratefully receive his gifts by faith alone. We simply cannot bring ourselves to have faith in a generous Creator who owes us nothing and teaches us what we could not learn from our own observations and reasoning.20 Not even if we, unlike Darwin, wanted to.

Whether or not we consider ourselves religious, our inability to abandon all reliance on our own wisdom or morality is not new. It was described by Paul in terms of humanity’s fall with Eve.21 If his teaching is correct, then our inability to exercise faith reflects the darkening of our minds due to our replacing the Creator with created things such as our own wisdom.22 In that case, our refusal of his love is so deeply ingrained that it seems natural.

The fact that unbelief comes so natural does not excuse it but rather makes it that much more blameworthy. For immorality by nature and compulsion is far worse than an immoral act. For example, someone who by nature delights in murder after murder is even more reprehensible than someone who uncharacteristically commits a single murder in a fit of rage. In the same way, our habitually excluding the Creator would fly in the face of the reality of our status as lovingly created beings more than would any single lapse of judgment.

According to first-century Christianity, that ingrained unbelief is the foundational sin that requires atonement to restore our fellowship with the Creator.23 Our inability to free ourselves from the tyranny of unbelief is precisely why we would need faith to be created in us by the same power that created the universe—the same power that resurrected the victim sacrificed to offer atonement for who we have become.10

  1. Mark 6:5 ↩︎
  2. Mark 9:23; 11:24 ↩︎
  3. Luke 18:1–8 ↩︎
  4. Luke 8:22-25 ↩︎
  5. John 3:16-21; 20:30-31 ↩︎
  6. While the letter from James was written around the same time as Paul’s letters, its authority was not universally recognized until much later. ↩︎
  7. 1 Corinthians 15:1-4; Romans 4:24-25 ↩︎
  8. Romans 1:16; 4:1-25 ↩︎
  9. 1 Corinthians 1:17-2:5 (see “If God exists, why doesn’t he prove it?” David R. Bickel, 2008 at absoluteparadox.com) ↩︎
  10. For a fuller explanation, see “Scientific evidence and first-century reports of miracles surrounding Jesus,” David R. Bickel, 2020. . ↩︎
  11. Richard Dawkins, as quoted by Alec Fisher, The Logic of Real Arguments, Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2004. ↩︎
  12. Sam Harris, as quoted in “NEWSWEEK Poll: 90% Believe in God” (April 8, 2007) ↩︎
  13. The autobiography of Charles Darwin 1809-1882. With the original omissions restored. Edited and with appendix and notes by his grand-daughter Nora Barlow. London: Collins, ed. Nora Barlow, 1958, p. 87 ↩︎
  14. This argument of Paul (1 Corinthians 4:7) was revived by Martin Luther’s explanation of the first article of the Creed in his Small Catechism. See Living by Faith: Justification and Sanctification, Bayer Oswald, Wm. B. Eerdmans Publishing Co., 2003. ↩︎
  15. Acts 14:14-18; 17:24-31; Romans 1:18-23 ↩︎
  16. Luke 24:25-48 ↩︎
  17. Like any promise, the promise of the Creator’s forgiveness implies an invitation to believe what is promised (Apology of the Augsburg Confession on Romans 4:16). For an analysis of that promise as a speech act, see Martin Luther’s Theology: A Contemporary Interpretation, Bayer Oswald, Wm. B. Eerdmans Publishing Co., 2008. ↩︎
  18. Genesis 3:1-19 ↩︎
  19. That summarizes the exposition by Martin Luther. See Luther’s Outlaw God: Volume 2: Hidden in the Cross, Steven D. Paulson, Fortress Press, 2019. ↩︎
  20. John 3:3; 6:44; Romans 8:8 ↩︎
  21. Romans 5:12-21 ↩︎
  22. Romans 1:18-23 ↩︎
  23. John 1:29; 9:41 ↩︎

Scripture readings and obituary in memory of Samuel H. Bickel

serviceworld

In the funeral service of Samuel Bickel, Rev. Jeremy Belter, pastor of Atonement Lutheran Church, read these passages from the Gospel according to St. John:

In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. He was with God in the beginning. Through him all things were made; without him nothing was made that has been made. In him was life, and that life was the light of all mankind. . . . 

He was in the world, and though the world was made through him, the world did not recognize him. He came to that which was his own, but his own did not receive him. Yet to all who did receive him, to those who believed in his name, he gave the right to become children of God— children born not of natural descent, nor of human decision or a husband’s will, but born of God. . . . 

The next day John saw Jesus coming toward him and said, “Look, the Lamb of God, who takes away the sin of the world! . . .

For God so loved the world that he gave his one and only Son, that whoever believes in him shall not perish but have eternal life. For God did not send his Son into the world to condemn the world, but to save the world through him. Whoever believes in him is not condemned, but whoever does not believe stands condemned already because they have not believed in the name of God’s one and only Son. This is the verdict: Light has come into the world, but people loved darkness instead of light because their deeds were evil. Everyone who does evil hates the light, and will not come into the light for fear that their deeds will be exposed. But whoever lives by the truth comes into the light, so that it may be seen plainly that what they have done has been done in the sight of God. . . .

The one who comes from above is above all; the one who is from the earth belongs to the earth, and speaks as one from the earth. The one who comes from heaven is above all. He testifies to what he has seen and heard, but no one accepts his testimony. Whoever has accepted it has certified that God is truthful.For the one whom God has sent speaks the words of God, for God gives the Spiritwithout limit. The Father loves the Son and has placed everything in his hands.Whoever believes in the Son has eternal life, but whoever rejects the Son will not see life, for God’s wrath remains on them. . . . 

“Very truly I tell you, whoever hears my word and believes him who sent me has eternal life and will not be judged but has crossed over from death to life. Very truly I tell you, a time is coming and has now come when the dead will hear the voice of the Son of God and those who hear will live. . . . 

You study the Scriptures diligently because you think that in them you have eternal life. These are the very Scriptures that testify about me, yet you refuse to come to me to have life. . . . 

From this time many of his disciples turned back and no longer followed him. “You do not want to leave too, do you?” Jesus asked the Twelve. 

Simon Peter answered him, “Lord, to whom shall we go? You have the words of eternal life.

We have come to believe and to know that you are the Holy One of God.” . . . 

Therefore Jesus told them, “My time is not yet here; for you any time will do. The world cannot hate you, but it hates me because I testify that its works are evil. . . . 

To the Jews who had believed him, Jesus said, “If you hold to my teaching, you are really my disciples. Then you will know the truth, and the truth will set you free.” . . . 

Now Thomas (also known as Didymus), one of the Twelve, was not with the disciples when Jesus came. So the other disciples told him, “We have seen the Lord!”

But he said to them, “Unless I see the nail marks in his hands and put my finger where the nails were, and put my hand into his side, I will not believe.”

A week later his disciples were in the house again, and Thomas was with them. Though the doors were locked, Jesus came and stood among them and said, “Peace be with you!” Then he said to Thomas, “Put your finger here; see my hands. Reach out your hand and put it into my side. Stop doubting and believe.”

Thomas said to him, “My Lord and my God!”

Then Jesus told him, “Because you have seen me, you have believed; blessed are those who have not seen and yet have believed.”

Jesus performed many other signs in the presence of his disciples, which are not recorded in this book. But these are written that you may believe that Jesus is the Messiah, the Son of God, and that by believing you may have life in his name.

John 1:1-4, 10-13, 29; 3:16-21, 31-36; 5:17-18, 24-25, 39-40; 6:66-69; 7:6-7; 8:31-32; 20:24-31 (New International Version, 2011)

Bickel.png

At the beginning of the service, Rev. Belter had read Sam Bickel’s obituary:  Continue reading →

“Are there legal regulations in the New Testament?” (centennial; August Pieper)


And Jesus cried out again with a loud voice and yielded up his spirit. And behold, the curtain of the temple was torn in two, from top to bottom.
Matthew 27:50-51a
Therefore let no one pass judgment on you in questions of food and drink, or with regard to a festival or a new moon or a Sabbath. These are a shadow of the things to come, but the substance belongs to Christ.
Colossians 2:16-17
Look: I, Paul, say to you that if you accept circumcision, Christ will be of no advantage to you. I testify again to every man who accepts circumcision that he is obligated to keep the whole law. You are severed from Christ, you who would be justified by the law; you have fallen away from grace. For through the Spirit, by faith, we ourselves eagerly wait for the hope of righteousness.
Galatians 5:2-5
. . . In the way in which it is stated in the Ten Commandments the love toward God and toward the neighbor is to express itself unconditionally on the part of absolutely all human beings and under all circumstances (except if he himself should make exceptions) and not a tittle differently (Mt 5:18ff).

Continue reading →

A specious argument against ordaining women as pastors

In every place of worship, I want men to pray with holy hands lifted up to God, free from anger and controversy. And I want women to be modest in their appearance. They should wear decent and appropriate clothing and not draw attention to themselves by the way they fix their hair or by wearing gold or pearls or expensive clothes. For women who claim to be devoted to God should make themselves attractive by the good things they do. Women should learn quietly and submissively. I do not let women teach men or have authority over them. Let them listen quietly. For God made Adam first, and afterward he made Eve. And it was not Adam who was deceived by Satan. The woman was deceived, and sin was the result. But women will be saved through childbearing, assuming they continue to live in faith, love, holiness, and modesty.

1 Timothy 2:8-15 (NLT)

An unjustified denial of women’s ordination as pastors

The interpretation of the above passage that has been adopted by the Lutheran Church—Missouri Synod (LCMS) obscures Paul’s clear argument, leaving the synod without any warrant for its practice of forbidding women from being ordained as pastors. Here are the logical steps of Paul’s reasoning in 1 Timothy 2:11-15:

  1. Adam was created before Eve.
  2. Therefore, a woman may not have authority over a man.
  3. Therefore, a woman may not teach in the church.

Since the 1960s, the LCMS has with increasingly consistency argued in its adopted position papers that the conclusion (#3) follows from the first premise (#1) even while denying the second step (#2). Under the assumption that Paul made a valid argument, what should Step 2 be replaced with to make the logic valid? In other words, how would Step 3 follow from Step 1 without considering Step 2? That is exactly what is missing in the current LCMS exegesis.

Since the LCMS no longer has any credible rationale for its refusal to ordain women as pastors, its practice is left vulnerable to attack.

The argument from the masculinity of the Father and the Groom

Prof. William C. Weinrich attempted to fill the breach by proposing that since pastors represent Christ when they teach his word and since Christ was a man, the Son of the Father, it follows that it is fitting that only men serve as pastors (“‘It is not Given to Women to Teach’: A Lex in Search of a Ratio,” Concordia Theological Seminary Press, Ft. Wayne, 1993, esp. pp. 28-31). Other theologians bearing the Lutheran name also hold this “Christological view of the ministry” (John F. Brug, 2009, The Ministry of the Word, NPH, pp. 316-331). Weinrich explained, “In the context of the pastoral office a male pastor remains the apt representative of the Father’s grace whereby all, male and female alike, hear the words of Christ and become the Bride of the Groom” (pp. 29-30).

That is eerily recognizable as a version of the male-representative defense of the papacy’s uncategorically barring of women from the priesthood:

  • “The Church has recognised that only those who have received a calling to serve by acting in the person of Christ can be ordained. The priest, therefore, must be a man because he represents a man, the God-Man: Jesus Christ. By his ordination, a priest acts in the very person of Christ the Head, who is the Bridegroom of His Bride, the Church” (“Why not Women Priests”  — accessed 21 December 2014)
  • “The church is the bride of Christ, and presbyters and bishops represent Christ to the church; women cannot represent the bridegroom” (Arthur A. Vogel, “Christ, Revelation, and the Ordination of Women,” in Towards a New Theology of Ordination: Essays on the Ordination of Women — accessed 21 December 2014)
  • “John Paul II places the inherent differences between men and women within the context of ‘an order of love’ rather than ‘an order of creation’ . . . Why can’t we have spiritual fathers (priests) and spiritual mothers (priestesses)? The answer is one that feminists do not like to hear . . . namely, that the priest is an icon of Christ and acts in persona Christi at the altar and in the confessional. In 1976 the Vatican issued Inter Insignores or “Declaration on the Admission of Women to the Ministerial Priesthood.” As this document says, we cannot ignore the fact that Christ is a man. He is the bridegroom; the Church is his bride. This nuptial mystery is proclaimed throughout the Old and New Testaments. One must utterly disregard the importance of this symbolism for the economy of salvation in order to make an argument for women’s ordination. There are actions “in which Christ himself, the author of the Covenant, the Bridegroom and Head of the Church, is represented.” At these times, Christ’s role (this is the original sense of the word persona) must be taken by a man. This is especially true in the case of the Eucharist, when Christ is exercising his ministry of salvation” (Jennifer Ferrara, in “Ordaining Women: Two Views,” First Things, April 2003, accessed 22 December 2014).
  • “If Christ-by his free and sovereign choice, clearly attested to by the Gospel and by the Church’s constant Tradition-entrusted only to men the task of being an “icon” of his countenance as “shepherd” and “bridegroom” of the Church through the exercise of the ministerial priesthood, this in no way detracts from the role of women, or for that matter from the role of the other members of the Church who are not ordained to the sacred ministry, since all share equally in the dignity proper to the “common priesthood” based on Baptism” (“Letter of Pope John Paul II to Women,” John Paul II, Vatican, 29 June 1995, Libreria Editrice Vaticana — accessed 21 December 2014).

Doctrinal errors connected to the male-representative argument

Followed consistently, that line of reasoning—that the literal maleness of the pastor is necessary for adequately representing the male Christ—must conclude that all male believers are literally feminized in their relationship with Christ, as occurs to some extent in bridal mysticism. Such sublimated sexuality has no support from the biblical texts portraying certain aspects of God’s covenant with his people in terms of betrothal and marriage (e.g., Hosea 1-2; Ephesians 5:21ff). Rather, its roots lie in Augustine’s Caritas-synthesis of the Eros motif of ancient Platonism, gnosticism, and Origin with the Agapē motif of apostolic Christianity, Irenaeus, and the Lutheran Reformation (Anders Nygren, 1982, Agape and Eros, University of Chicago Press). Regardless of how widespread Caritas’s contempt of women has become, it has no place in the church of the Augsburg Confession.

Weinrich’s attempted solution creates another serious problem in its denial of the confessional Lutheran doctrine of church and ministry as opposed to the doctrine held by the papacy. According to Ephesians 4:11, pastors indeed represent Christ, serving as his gifts to the church, not as mere representatives of the church. The New Testament also teaches that they do so not because they are his exclusive representatives in the service of the word but rather because they are spokesmen of the church, which represents Christ in obedience to his commands to proclaim the gospel in word and sacrament. The church is the communion of all believers, not only pastors or even a confusing mix of pastors and laity, much less an organization. According to the Gospels and Peter’s first epistle, every believer, male or female, is a priest called to announce the good news of God’s saving deeds as a sent representative of Christ himself. One way believers do that is by choosing pastors from their midst to teach the gospel and administer the sacraments as their representative. Once called to the public ministry, the pastor continues to represent Christ as a priest, but now also as a representative of other priests, no longer only as an individual. In short, pastors publicly represent Christ through the church because it consists of the women as well as the men who represent Christ originally. Since Christ found it fitting that believing women represent him, delivering the gospel message in his name, Weinrich’s reasoning to the contrary is uncanny from the Lutheran perspective.

Thus, the male-representative argument of Weinrich and the papacy has unsettling connections to two grave errors: the semi-pagan Caritas synthesis and its historically related view of church and ministry.

Back to Paul’s simple argument

The reason Paul did not allow women to teach the congregation has nothing to do with the supposed unfitness of female teachers to represent the male Christ. Since Paul was not issuing a new ceremonial law or other legal regulation in 1 Timothy 2:11-15, his directive cannot be grasped without a clear understanding of his supporting argument.

The context and Greek grammar of v. 12 together suggest that “man” serves as the object not only of “to have authority over” but also of “to teach” (G. W. Knight, The Pastoral Epistles: A Commentary on the Greek Text, Kindle location 2487; T. R. Schreiner, “An Interpretation of 1 Timothy 2:9-15,” Women in the Church: an Analysis and Application of 1 Timothy 2:9-15, Kindle location 2252). In that case, the clause may be accurately translated, “I do not permit a woman to teach a man or to have authority over a man,” as is made clear by the Complete Jewish Bible, the Easy-to-Read Version, the New Life Version, and the New Living Translation, quoted above. That Paul specifically prohibited teaching men as opposed to representing Christ is clear in the whole structure of the tightly connected argument, from the submissive learning of the women in v. 11 to the differences between Adam and Eve in vv. 13-15 (Mark Braun,1981, “An Exegesis Of I Timothy 2:11-15 And Its Relation To The CHE Statement: ‘The Role Of Man And Woman According To Holy Scripture’”). The problem with Paul’s argument is not a lack of clarity but rather the sharp conflict between its conclusion and values in current Western culture.

In conclusion, there is no need to search for a rationale for Paul’s statements on the roles of women, much less to find one in the assumed propriety of having male teachers as the sole representatives of a male Bridegroom. Believers already have the simple word of Scripture. Paul stated his rationale in plain language. It is not lost.

Acknowledgments

Constructive criticism from Rolf Preus and David Jay Webber is gratefully acknowledged.

Should New Testament commands be obeyed as new laws?

Since everything a Christian is required to do is already in the moral law as summarized in the Ten Commandments and as revealed at least to some extent in natural law, the New Testament issues no new laws, ceremonial or otherwise. The New Testament instead proclaims freedom from the law as a tyrant without abrogating the moral law, which it applies to specific cases.

Christ’s commands are not legal in character. For example, in the Sermon on the Mount, Christ pointed out that the ancient prohibitions of murder and adultery had always condemned hatred and lust. Rather than issuing new laws, he commanded the oral and visible proclamation of the gospel and freely gave apostles, evangelists, pastors, prophets, etc. (Matthew 28:18-20; Ephesians 4:11).

Nor can legal regulations be found among the numerous directives in the Pauline epistles. The fact that Paul gave specific instructions on the qualifications of deacons (1 Timothy 3:8-13), on head coverings (1 Corinthians 11:2-16), on appointing presbyters (Titus 1:5), and on Sunday collections (1 Corinthians 16:2) does not mean those instructions are new rules binding in all circumstances (on 1 Timothy 3, see A. Pieper, “Are There Legal Regulations in the New Testament?,” pp. 7-8). Rather, they are inspired applications of timeless wisdom to the current church setting.

Similarly, Paul did not give any new regulation when writing to Timothy about the role of women but rather appealed to the order of creation. Any conclusions drawn from what Paul said are only binding if they can be found in the moral law. For Paul did not appeal to his own authority in 1 Timothy 2:11-15 or any new regulation but instead to the creation account of Genesis 2-3. For example, 1 Timothy 2:14 is readily understood as an application of Genesis 3:17 (M. Braun (1981) “An Exegesis Of I Timothy 2:11-15 And Its Relation To The CHE Statement: ‘The Role Of Man And Woman According To Holy Scripture,’” p. 11).

In fact, Timothy could have learned from the Pentateuch not only what Paul said about the role of women but also what he said about paying elders who govern well (1 Timothy 5:17-19). The cases are similar in that the specific instructions are relevant applications of the will of God already revealed. Any interpretations of those instructions that do not follow from the Pentateuch go beyond what Paul actually argued.

For example, the contention that it is not fitting that females speak on behalf of a male Christ (W. C. Weinrich, “‘It is not Given to Women to Teach’: A Lex in Search of a Ratio,” Concordia Theological Seminary Press, Ft. Wayne, 1993) has absolutely no support from Paul. Rather, it reflects a papal form of the ancient Eros piety and conflicts with what the New Testament says about church and ministry. Recognizing the non-legislative nature of the New Testament can prevent such extreme positions on the ministry of the word.

3 January 2015. Hyperlink updated 6 July 2016.

Doctrinal differences between LCMS & WELS: A concise comparison

What happened to the Arians in that trope by which they made Christ into a merely nominal God? What has happened in our own time to these new prophets regarding the words of Christ, “This is my body,” where one finds a trope in the pronoun “this,” another in the verb “is,” another in the noun “body”? What I have observed is this, that all heresies and errors in connection with the Scriptures have arisen, not from the simplicity of the words, as is almost universally stated, but from neglect of the simplicity of the words, and from tropes or inferences hatched out of men’s own heads.

—Martin Luther
Bondage of the Will, J. J. Pelikan, Oswald, H. C., Lehmann, H. T., ed.;
Luther’s Works, Vol. 33: Career of the Reformer III; Fortress Press: Philadelphia, 1999, p. 163

Major differences between Missouri and Wisconsin

Doctrinal divisions between the Lutheran Church—Missouri Synod (LCMS) and the Wisconsin Evangelical Lutheran Synod (WELS) include two long-standing differences in official statements:

Other possible differences are either more recent or less clear.

Church and ministry

For an example of what may be another long-standing difference between the two synods, many within the LCMS hold the WELS doctrine of doctrine of church and ministry to be in conflict with the position adopted by the LCMS. The differences between their interpretation and the WELS doctrine of church and ministry arise from different ways to understand a few passages of Scripture.

Acknowledgement: Much of the material of the posts on church and ministry arose from discussions with Daniel Gorman, Paul Jecklin, Rolf Preus, and David Jay Webber. The opinions expressed are my own.

Evaluation

As Luther observed, doctrinal divisions do not arise from ambiguity in Scripture but rather from insufficient regard for the passages that teach on the topics of controversy. Every article of the faith is directly derived from perfectly clear passages of Scripture. That is why the history of theology is only helpful to the extent that it points back to the word of God.

It does not follow that no preparation is needed. In evaluating doctrinal differences, prayer, meditation on the Scriptures, and the cross are essential.

New LCMS/LCC doctrine regarding women

 1Timothy 1Corinthians
The Ev. Lutheran Church accepts the whole written Word of God (as God’s Word),
deems nothing in it superfluous or of little worth but everything needful and important . . .
The Ev. Lutheran Church distinguishes sharply
between what God’s Word commands and what it leaves free . . .
The Ev. Lutheran Church has thus all the essential marks of the true visible Church of God on earth
as they are found in no other known communion,
and therefore it needs no reformation in doctrine.

—C. F. W. Walther

With those bold words, a founding father of the Lutheran Church—Missouri Synod (LCMS) set the course for the newborn synod. Does she still show herself to be a synod of the church that “accepts the whole written Word of God,” considering nothing in it to be unimportant (Matthew 5:18-19), and therefore needing “no reformation in doctrine?” A controversial passage will serve as a test case.

The Apostle Paul wrote 1 Timothy 2:11-15,  an insignificant and outdated passage by today’s standards:

Let a woman learn quietly with all submissiveness. I do not permit a woman to teach or to exercise authority over a man; rather, she is to remain quiet. For Adam was formed first, then Eve; and Adam was not deceived, but the woman was deceived and became a transgressor. Yet she will be saved through childbearing—if they continue in faith and love and holiness, with self-control.

 

On the basis of that Scripture, the LCMS originally taught:
1a. Women are to make use of their distinctive gifts rather than to teach in the church service since in doing so they would “exercise authority over a man.”
1b. Such an exercise of authority is forbidden because it is contrary to the fact that Eve was formed after Adam.
1c. Thus, Paul prohibited all exercises of authority contrary to the created order,  even those unrelated to the performance of pastoral functions.
As a result, women did not hold office or even vote in church meetings.

 

That teaching began to change as the roles of North American women evolved in the 1960s. Both the LCMS and the Lutheran Church—Canada (LCC) now reinterpret 1 Timothy 2:11-15 as follows:
2a. Women are to make use of their distinctive gifts rather than to “exercise authority over a man” in the form of performing pastoral functions.
2b. Such an exercise of authority in the form of performing pastoral functions is forbidden because it is contrary to the fact that Eve was formed after Adam.
2c. Other exercises of women’s authority over men are not contrary to the fact that Eve was formed after Adam.
Accordingly, women as non-elder officers such as congregation presidents may now exercise authority over men since those offices do not involve performing any functions of the pastoral office.

 

While the adoption of the new doctrine is completely understandable in terms of pressures to conform more and more to modern culture, the logical reasoning behind 2b and 2c is not clear. How could Paul forbid women from  performing pastoral functions on the grounds of the created order but not forbid other exercises of authority over men on the same grounds? That could be clarified by explaining why the fact that Eve was formed after Adam should prohibit exercises of women’s authority over men in the form of performing pastoral functions but not in any other forms. Unfortunately, if such an explanation exists, it is not readily available, not even in the relevant committee reports. None of the commentaries in the bibliography even mentions the novel LCMS/LCC approach to interpreting 1 Timothy 2:11-15.

 

In fact, that approach appears to be not so much a careful exposition of what the passage says but more of a pragmatic compromise between the traditional approach (1a-1c) and the progressive approaches of those who favor the ordination of women as pastors. For example, Towner implies that the text can be best understood by imagining a situation in which some women in the church at Ephesus tried to dominate based on a misreading of Genesis 2-3—a situation does not pertain today. That speculation, while creative, is implausible in light of Paul’s exhortation to silent learning not just in Ephesus but also in Corinth (1 Corinthians 14:34-35). Similarly, Keener argued that Paul’s exhortations do not apply to women who are much better educated than those of the first century. However, Paul did not ground his exhortations on the women’s level of education but rather on the order of creation (1 Timothy 2:13) as recorded in “the law” (1 Corinthians 14:34). In view of 1 Timothy 2:13 and 1 Corinthians 11:8-10, Paul’s appeal to “the law” was a reference to Genesis 2:15, 22 (Ciampa and Rosner; Johnson; Knight; cf. Matthew 5:18-19). If those progressive opinions had more credibility, they might support the new LCMS/LCC doctrine by indicating that 1 Timothy 2 is unclear on the points that seem to establish the traditional view.

 

If, as is much more certain, the traditional doctrine is the clear teaching of 1 Timothy 2:11-15 after all, two options remain: rejection or acceptance of the authority of the passage. Each has its own difficulties. Rejecting the authority of that Scripture would call into question the authority of other Scriptures. More radical theologians resort to this approach, with Johnson looking for flaws in Paul’s logic and with Collins denying that Paul wrote the epistle. Accepting the authority of 1 Timothy 2:11-15 would mean rejecting deeply cherished attitudes of modern society. Biblical scholars taking that stand include Knight and Yarbrough.

 

The LCMS and LCC still tolerate their former interpretation of 1 Timothy 2:11-15. Each congregation is allowed to teach that doctrine and to enforce it in its constitution even though it is contrary to the newly adopted doctrine of those synods. Unlike the LCMS and the LCC, the Wisconsin Evangelical Lutheran Synod and the Evangelical Lutheran Synod remain in agreement with the traditional understanding of the passage and do not condone different teachings:

 

Bibliography

 

Changes leading to the current LCMS/LCC doctrine:

 

 

Expositions closer to the original LCMS doctrine:

 

 

Commentaries and related works:

 

Ciampa, Roy E., and Brian S. Rosner. The First Letter to the Corinthians. Grand Rapids, Mich. Nottingham, England: William B. Eerdmans Publishing Co. Apollos, 2010.

 

Collins, Raymond F., and Daniel J. Harrington. First Corinthians. Collegeville, Minn: Liturgical Press, 2006.

 

Collins, Raymond F. 1 & 2 Timothy and Titus : a Commentary. Louisville: Westminster John Knox Press, 2002.

 

Johnson, Luke T. The First and Second Letters to Timothy: a New Translation with Introduction and Commentary. New Haven London: Yale University Press, 2008.

 

Keener, Craig S. Paul, Women & Wives: Marriage and Women’s Ministry in the Letters of Paul. Peabody, Mass: Hendrickson Publishers, 1992.

 

Knight, George W. The Pastoral Epistles : a Commentary on the Greek Text. Grand Rapids, Mich. Carlisle, England: W.B. Eerdmans Paternoster Press, 1992.

 

Towner, Philip H. The Letters to Timothy and Titus. Grand Rapids, Mich: William B. Eerdmans Pub. Co, 2006.

 

Yarbrough, Robert W., “Progressive and Historic: The Hermeneutics of 1 Timothy 2:9-15,” in: Köstenberger, Andreas J., and Thomas R. Schreiner, editors. Women in the Church: an Analysis and Application of 1 Timothy 2:9-15. Grand Rapids, MI: Baker Academic, 2005.

 

Trinity made in the USA

Jesus and the FatherJesus and the Father: Modern Evangelicals Reinvent the Doctrine of the Trinity by Kevin N. Giles

My rating: 4 of 5 stars

Many conservative evangelicals have been teaching that Christ was always submissive to the Father from eternity past, before the creation of the world. As Giles points out, their rejecting aspects of Arianism does not absolve them of the subordinationist error inherent in that teaching. He cites the Athanasian Creed as a clear witness to Scripture’s condemnation of all forms of subordinating the Son to the Father apart from the Son’s human nature:

“Accordingly there is one Father and not three Fathers, one Son and not three Sons, one Holy Spirit and not three Holy Spirits. And among these three persons none is before or after another, none is greater or less than another…”

According to Giles, those evangelicals interpret 1 Corinthians 11:3 to teach the subordination of the Son to his Father, even before becoming a man, in order to support the submission of wives to their husbands. Ironically, Giles’s opposition to that subordinationist error may have led him to a different Trinitarian error. Perhaps in unguarded statements, he seems to teach that the now-exalted Christ, in his human nature, is no longer subordinate to the Father. That is also clearly condemned by the Creed:

“…our Lord Jesus Christ, the Son of God, is at once God and man … equal to the Father with respect to his Godhead and inferior to the Father with respect to his manhood.”

Giles, at least in this book, failed to affirm the inferiority of Christ with respect to his human nature. By making such an affirmation, he could have more consistently followed his wise advice to echo Scripture’s clear teaching on the Trinity without being clouded by social agendas.

[Quotations of the Creed are from Tappert, T. G. (2000, c1959). The Book of Concord: The Confessions of the Evangelical Lutheran Church (The Three Universal or Ecumenical Creeds: III, 1-40). Philadelphia: Fortress Press.]

More book reviews

Deism of natural law

The [Stoic] concept of [natural law] also implies a deistic conception of God. It thinks of God as having written certain ethical principles on the human heart, at the creation. Even when he is out of fellowship with God he has these principles in him and can direct his life accordingly. But Paul believes in God as living and ever active with men, even with the heathen, in life’s concrete situations, showing them what is good and what is required of him… He has written "the works of the law" in their hearts so that, if they do otherwise in the concrete situation, they are aware they have done evil.
 
Anders Nygren. Commentary on Romans. New edition. Augsburg Fortress Pub, 1978. On Romans 2:1-3:20 (2).

Deism of natural theology

Natural theology assumes a deistic view. It postulates a God who, after creation, withdrew from the world and concealed himself behind that which He had made. And it looks upon men as left to themselves and desiring nothing more than to find God by means of the evidence of Him which creation bears; for they would worship and serve Him.

But Paul believes that God is living and ceaselessly active. Ever since creation He has been active in the life of man. In His work He reveals His eternal power and glory. As to mankind, Paul holds that, though God ever comes to meet with him, man does not honor him as God or give thanks to Him.
 

Anders Nygren. Commentary on Romans. New edition. Augsburg Fortress Pub, 1978. On Romans 1:18-32.