Doctrine in the Church of England, Prolegomena

Yes, I know that today is Tuesday. It took a while to recover from watching the Tour de France and celebrating Lance's seven-peat! And then there was that wonderful shuttle launch this morning.

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For those who have just arrived we are continuing our look at Doctrine in the Church of England - The Report of the Commission on Christian Doctrine Appointed by the Archbishops of Canterbury and York in 1922.
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Prolegomena: The Sources and Authority of Christian Doctrine (pp. 27-39)

The faith and doctrine of Christianity are handed down to us in the context of a living fellowship.
. . .
The Christian religion is founded upon a specific revelation of God in history. To this revelation Scripture and the Church alike bear witness. But the Church has always claimed that its doctrine is based on Scripture.
. . .
Belief that the Bible is the inspired record of God's self-revelation to man and of man's response to that revelation is not for us a dogma imposed as a result of some theory of the mode of the composition of the books, but a conclusion drawn from the character of their contents and the spiritual insight displayed in them. (p. 27)

I read the above to say that when we say that Scripture is the inspired Word of God, we don't mean that God dictated every single word, as much as some would like to think. Instead, I take it to mean exactly what it says, that we accept the various books of the Bible as scripture based on "a conclusion drawn from the character of their contents and the spiritual insight displayed in them." That in both content and theme the 66 books of the Bible are unified.

This unity consists in the presentation of a self-revelation of God through history and experience -- a self-revelation which develops in relation both to the response and to the resistance of man to the Divine initiative, and which culminates in the Incarnation.
. . .
From the Christian standpoint the Bible is unique, as being the inspired record of a unique revelation. It is the record of the special preparation for Christ, and of His direct impact upon men, through His Life, Death, and Resurrection. It sets before us that historical movement of Divine self-disclosure of which the Gospel is the crown.
Thus while rejecting the view that all parts of the Bible stand on one spiritual level, we also repudiate any effort to concentrate all attention on the directly edifying passages. Those which in themselves are on a lower spiritual level have their place in the whole, which derives part of its power from the universality of its range and part even from the intractability of some of its material.(p. 28)

While all Scripture is useful, not all Scripture is equal. The reason we Anglicans stand for the reading of the Gospel, but for neither the Old Testament nor the Epistle reading is that the Gospel is the pinnacle of Scripture. It is the culmination of the story of redemption that began with the fall of humanity in Eden.

(T)he books of the Bible, though received as the oracles of God, were written within, and accepted as canonical by a living and worshipping society. They can only be fully understood in relation to that society and its life. Moreover, the Bible is the work of many writers -- original authors, editors, and revisers -- and its final form is due to the selective judgment of the Jewish and Christian Churches. It is in this process as a whole that we recognise the working of the Divine Spirit. (p. 30)

Sixty-six books written, edited, and revised in more than one language over a period greater than two millennia by a motley crew of writers, editors, and revisers, and shaped by their various communities yet containing one central theme with no contradictions and speaking to all sorts and conditions of humankind through out the ages is a pretty amazing thing.

Inspiration is not to be thought of as analogous to "possession," in which the personality of the possessed is superseded; . . . The truly inspired are those whose response to the Spirit of God has issued in a free surrender to His guidance. In this surrender all individual characteristics of mentality, temperament, knowledge, and the like remain, and when Inspiration issues in writing these characteristics appear in what is written.(p. 30)

So we can see that the writing of Bible was far from the taking of divine dictation, yet there is no example of inspiration that parallels that of the Bible.

Well that brings us up to the middle of page 31. I'll be back after a long late lunch with the section on the authority of Scripture.

Pages read since last post: 4.5 out of a remaining 215.

Categories: Anglican Communion, Anglican Doctrine, Bible, Books, Christian Doctrine, Christianity, Church of England, Church of England Doctrine, Doctrine, ECUSA, Episcopal Church, Episcopal Doctrine, Non-Fiction, Reading, Religion, Scripture, & Theology.