On Clarity, Honesty, and Good Faith in the Church
Introduction
It is not uncommon to hear someone within a denomination that subscribes to a specific confessional document or binding polity statement complain that their denomination is elevating human teaching above God’s word itself. This sentiment seems to be plausible to a good number of people. I encountered one version of this complaint this year at the Presbyterian Church in America’s General Assembly. It was specifically about whether women can serve in the role of deacons. The argument, presented on the floor of the General Assembly, was that the PCA’s Book of Church Order, especially a proposed clarification being voted on at GA, is more rigid on this point than Scripture itself.
One way to defend the PCA’s confession (the Westminster Confession of Faith) or polity (the Book of Church Order) is jure divino Presbyterianism (divine right Presbyterianism), which contends, as John Lafayette Girardeau (1825–1898) put it, that “that what is not commanded, either explicitly or implicitly in the Scriptures, is prohibited to the church. She can utter no new doctrine, make no new laws, ordain no new forms of government, and invent no new modes of worship.” Assuming, then, that the Westminster Confession and the PCA’s Book of Church Order are truly biblical, Presbyterians are bound to strict adherence to these documents.
There is, however, another approach to defending our church’s constitutional standards. It is in many ways more prosaic and commonsense, but is also to my mind based on irrefutable logic for those who value honesty and who operate in good faith within our denomination. It is an approach that I encountered years ago in a short introductory essay to Robert Shaw’s (1795–1863) exposition of the Westminster Confession of Faith by the Scottish Presbyterian pastor and seminary professor William Maxwell Hetherington (1795–1863).
Why Creeds and Confessions?
Hetherington’s argument unfolds as follows. Because of sin the human mind is prone to error. Thus, even the simplest of statements can be understood in a large number of ways. Not all of these can be correct. Hetherington does not initially discuss the Bible. He simply notes a reality all people regularly face: a failure to agree on the meaning of some piece of written communication. A large number of people might even affirm that they agree with a given statement, but it would be impossible to know whether they are in actual agreement unless and until they explain that statement in their own words. “This,” Hetherington notes, “would be really his Creed, or Confession of Faith, respecting that truth.” If all agreed on that point in said “creed” or “confession” they would have a common confession about the meaning of the statement in question. This confession (whether actually capturing the meaning of the statement or not), if stated clearly, could then be used as the grounds for admission into a body of people who together hold that truth.
Thus far, Hetherington argues, few people would find such a process problematic. No one would be infringing on the liberty of anyone else or attempting to control their personal convictions about anything:
If any man cannot agree with the joint testimony borne by those who are agreed, this may be a cause of mutual regret; but it could neither confer on them any right to compel him to join them, contrary to his convictions, nor entitle him to complain on account of being excluded from a body of men with those opinions he did no concur. No man in strict integrity, indeed, could even wish to become one of a body of men with whom he did not agree on that peculiar point which formed the basis of their association.[2]
This is a matter of simple and basic honesty. No one forced anyone to join together unwillingly in affirming his “creed.” It was freely subscribed to by all as an agreed upon declaration of the meaning of a given statement or statements. At the same time, no one could fault the body affirming that “creed” for excluding others who do not hold to it. Why would anyone want to be a member of a body the holds to a creed they do not believe is accurate anway?
Hetherington then moves to consider these principles with regard to religious truths. It often happens that even those committed to the inerrancy and absolute authority of Scripture do not agree on what the Scriptures teach. Any number of such people, for example, might say that they affirm Paul’s teaching on deacons in 1 Timothy 3:8–13. It would be impossible to know, however, whether those people were in agreement about the meaning of that passage until they explained it in their own words. Hetherington continues,
“If any man say that his only rule of faith is the Bible, every man who believes the Bible to be the Word of God will agree in this sentiment; but still the question returns, ‘What do you understand the Bible to teach?’ It would be no answer to this question merely to repeat a series of texts; for this would give no information in what sense these texts were understood.”
When we come to Scripture it is not necessary that we agree on its meaning simply because it is good to be in agreement with other Christians. Rather, the Bible itself
“appoints a body of men to be the depositaries and teachers of that truth – a Church, which is not a voluntary association of men who have ascertained that there is a harmony of sentiment sufficient for a basis of union, but a divine institution, subject directly to God.”
That is to say, the church is not a club of like-minded individuals. It is a divine institution with a divine calling to proclaim the truths of Scripture to the ends of the earth. Therefore, it is essential that there be agreement regarding what the Scriptures teach so that this can be taught to others with clarity and consistency. In short, “[s]ince [the church] has been constituted the depositary of God’s truth, it is her duty to him to state, in the most distinct and explicit terms, what she understands that truth to mean.” Furthermore, “with respect to the main outline of the truths which they believe, they are deeply interested in obtaining some security that those who are to become their teachers in future generations shall continue to teach the same divine and saving truths.” Hence, creeds, confessions, books of church order, and so on.
Creedal Clarification in the Bible
This process of creedal clarification is one that Michael Allen and Scott Swain have shown in their book Reformed Catholicity is already at work in the New Testament itself as it authoritatively records the deliberations of the early church in the book of Acts. Acts 15 recounts that a dispute arose in the church as to whether Gentile converts to Christ needed to be circumcised and keep the entirety of the Mosaic law. The controversy affected the church in Antioch, Paul’s base for missionary activity, but also appears to have been affecting many other churches across a wide geographical area. These churches, then, appointed elders (Paul and Barnabas among them) to attend a council in Jerusalem to decide what should be done. There are several vital points to emphasize. This was a council of apostles and elders (Acts 15:2, 6, 22); it did not decide matters according to mere apostolic authority. And yet these apostles and elders, gathered together, were authorized by the church (Acts 15:3, 22) to make genuinely binding declarations (Acts 15:28). The basis of that authority, however, was Scripture. Even the apostle Peter made his case that Gentiles need not take on the yoke of the Mosaic law by appealing to the Bible, not to his apostolic authority (Acts 15:15–21). As Allen and Swain put it, after concluding their deliberations, the Jerusalem “council’s judgment is formalized in a decree (Gk. dogmata in 16:4), the binding force of which is both to relieve the church from the burden of false teaching (15:10, 24, 28) and to preserve the church’s freedom in the gospel of grace (15:11).” Hence, “Scripture’s teaching in its entirety includes teaching about divinely authorized, subordinate authorities that have a role to play in biblical instruction and interpretation.”
This, however, is a ministerial, not magisterial, authority. That is, it is a subordinate authority founded on the absolute authority of God and his word. To put this in classically Protestant theological terms: the “norming norm” for the church is Scripture, while the “normed norm” is the church’s coming to clarify the meaning of scripture in its creeds, confessions, and polity documents. (On this, see Carl Trueman’s The Creedal Imperative.) Only Scripture can serve as the authoritative basis (“norming norm”) for the church’s subsequent statements of what the Scriptures teach. Thus, the church’s deliberations on such matters are a “normed norm,” an authority arising only out of divine authority. In sum, the necessary process of creedal clarification that Hetherington sets forth is precisely what we see beginning to take place in the earliest church, and which is thus warranted by Scripture itself.
Conclusion: Honesty Demands Creedal Clarity
Hetherington’s defense of extra-biblical clarificatory statements, that nonetheless bind the conscience once agreed to, answers one of the most common objections to creeds, confessions, and other binding statements of denominational polity, namely, that they are unbiblical impositions, that they place merely human sentiments on the same level as Scripture itself. These kinds of binding statements of faith and practice are needed because it is precisely the meaning of the Bible that is disputed when contentions arise within churches. Such statements exist to clarify the Bible’s teaching, a process already at work in the earliest church. No one is forced to violate his conscience by submitting to a specific church’s confessional standards, standards he does not agree with. Any leader in any church is free to seek out a fellowship that teaches in a way that will enable him to give his full and honest consent. Honesty, however, necessitates that once such free consent is given, it must be given in good faith and without secret reservations and hesitations. Otherwise, the church is put in a perilous position: its members and fellow officers can never be confident that its ministers truly believe and teach what they have publicly professed to believe and teach.
In fact, one of the greatest benefits of explicitly stated creeds is that they protect the church from unwritten and unstated creeds. Everyone has beliefs about what the Bible teaches. But beliefs that are not publicly accessible in simple, clear, written form are not subject to public scrutiny. Furthermore, they are not open to correction because there is a denial that they even exist. “I just believe the Bible,” say some. Yes, all fine and good. But the point at issue is always: “What does the Bible mean?” Creeds provide a publicly accessible standard and safeguard in articulating a church’s official teaching. As such, they can be amended as needed. No such safeguards exist for unstated creeds that exist only in one’s mind.
This brings me back to where I started, the case made on the floor of the PCA’s General Assembly for female deacons. The unavoidable conclusion arising out of that argument is that the PCA’s Book of Church order is simply wrong on female deacons. The PCA has an unequivocally clear statement, however, on what it believes in this matter. Perhaps it is wrong. Until its constitutional documents are amended, however, that is the binding position it takes. One must now either conform to those documents as they currently exist, or leave the denomination for another, the constitution to which he can subscribe to in good faith. No one forces any minister to agree to the PCA’s constitution against his will, but once he gives his assent, he vows to God to adhere to it. Simple honesty dictates that he does so.
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Why are we to assume that the Confessions and Creeds are truly Biblical? Note what Dunson says in his article:
‘Assuming, then, that the Westminster Confession and the PCA’s Book of Church Order are truly biblical‘
It’s not that we should sever ourselves from the thoughts and beliefs of those Christians who preceded us, that would be horrible. But what is the difference between believing that the Confessions are inerrant in what it says what the Scriptures say from putting the Confessions on a pedestal that is comparable to the pedestal on which put the Scriptures? And if the Confessions limit what we can see in the Scriptures, how is it that the Confessions do not become a vicar of the Scriptures?
Personally, I would be just as leery of the person who holds to the Confessions without any exceptions as I would have a person who holds to too many exceptions to what the Confessions say. Of course, that would also depend on what exceptions they hold to. Not all parts of the Confessions are equal in importance.
Interesting. You say that once one accepts a creed, he must embrace it wholesale. And yet, written by uninspired men, it is always going to have faults. So I am hearing that we must ascribe to a creed and then ignore the Bible by following it.
No, the answer is that honorable folk will study the Bible with each other and come to a common understanding. The basics of salvation are easy, the church organization is clear. Anything besides what the New Testament church did is adding to or taking away from the Apostles’ doctrine.