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scott_jorgenson
Registered Member
Date Joined Dec 2002
Total Posts : 271
| Posted 10/30/2003 2:38 PM (GMT -6) |   | The Evangelical Theological Society's Executive Committee has investigated open-theist members Clark Pinnock and John Sanders, and recommended to the membership that they keep Clark and eject John. Here's the story at Christianity Today magazine: http://www.christianitytoday.com/ct/2003/143/41.0.html
Scott | | Back to Top | | |
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honorman
Registered Member
Date Joined Oct 2002
Total Posts : 1137
| Posted 10/30/2003 7:48 PM (GMT -6) | | | The world of Christians just grew a little colder. Speculation be damned! Imagination be cursed...thank God most Christians know little of such pompous men! | | Back to Top | | |
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scott_jorgenson
Registered Member
Date Joined Dec 2002
Total Posts : 271
| Posted 10/31/2003 8:20 AM (GMT -6) | | I thought the two dissenters on the ETS committee were right-on when they noted that ETS does not define the meaning of "inerrant" and has long embraced (from what I can tell) membership that spans from the strict inerrantist view through the infallibilist view and even edging up against neo-orthodox views. Anyone who's read Clark Pinnock's The Scripture Principle, for example, knows he's not a strict inerrantist in the Geisler/Archer/etc sense. Also, wasn't Bernard Ramm a member of ETS, and yet Ramm is famous for his departure from total factual inerrancy (eg in resolving intrabiblical contradictions, or conflicts with established science and history). So it really seems to me to be arbitrary and subjective splitting of hairs to recommend retaining Clark and tossing John Sanders on inerrancy grounds.
In part, though, I think some of the confusion over the meaning of "inerrant" has to be laid at the feet of those who just can't seem to bring themselves to disassociate from the term. But words don't get to mean what we personally interpret them to mean; they mean what at least one sizeable group in the community agrees that they mean, and if we don't like it, we should invent another word. Like it or not, "inerrancy" throughout the 20th century and into the 21st has predominantly meant "total" and "factual" and "literal" - Hodge, Geisler, etc have won that battle over the definition - that is why we have other terms like "infallibilist" to describe other positions. I've given up on inerrancy (can't stand its special-pleading anymore) and am not afraid to say it and don't understand why, for example, Clark and the dozens of others like him in ETS can't do so as well. I can only conclude it is because rejecting inerrancy makes it sound as if one is saying "scripture is tainted by what even God (if he exists) considers to be mistakes he wishes weren't there" - and who wants to paint themselves with that big ol' target?
Scott
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Electra
Registered Member
Date Joined Feb 2002
Total Posts : 611
| Posted 10/31/2003 8:56 AM (GMT -6) | | quote:
In part, though, I think some of the confusion over the meaning of "inerrant" has to be laid at the feet of those who just can't seem to bring themselves to disassociate from the term. But words don't get to mean what we personally interpret them to mean; they mean what at least one sizeable group in the community agrees that they mean, and if we don't like it, we should invent another word. Like it or not, "inerrancy" throughout the 20th century and into the 21st has predominantly meant "total" and "factual" and "literal" - Hodge, Geisler, etc have won that battle over the definition - that is why we have other terms like "infallibilist" to describe other positions. I've given up on inerrancy (can't stand its special-pleading anymore) and am not afraid to say it and don't understand why, for example, Clark and the dozens of others like him in ETS can't do so as well. I can only conclude it is because rejecting inerrancy makes it sound as if one is saying "scripture is tainted by what even God (if he exists) considers to be mistakes he wishes weren't there" - and who wants to paint themselves with that big ol' target?
Scott
Scott, I truly respect your stance. I think one reason members of the ETS might prefer to redefine the term (to the satisfaction of their own consciences regardless of the "authorial intent" behind it) instead of refusing to sign on to it any longer is a matter of economics rather than conviction. The ETS is a professional organization and many evangelical institutions use membership as a litmus test for the legitimacy of bible scholars and theologians. Inerrancy basically functions as a Shiboleth that may bring clarity to hiring and firing practices, but unfortunately brings confusion to people who are actually trying to make sense of the Bible for their own walk with God and their witness to neighbors.
Also, if I remember correctly, there are only two beliefs that members must sign on to in order to participate in the society: the Trinity and inerrancy. For better or worse, dropping the inerrancy requirement would radically alter something central to what makes the ETS the ETS. Some prominent evangelical Christian scholars, such as Roger Olson, have never participated in the ETS. Though it means I will have to work harder to prove the "legitimacy" of my high view of Scripture to evangelical institutions that might hire me, I personally do not plan to become a member.
Electra
Love in action is a harsh and dreadful thing. ~ Dostoevsky | | Back to Top | | |
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Tiggers
Registered Member
Date Joined Jul 2001
Total Posts : 219
| Posted 10/31/2003 10:53 AM (GMT -6) | | First, Aughhhhh  ! Sheesh, what’s up with all this ETS stuff; furthermore, it seems by trying to stay in their membership we are granting them far too much power. Wouldn’t they be happier being like minded traditionalist without much interaction with the world outside? Ok, Ok, going too far, I'm just clown'n and venting outloud, sorry!
Second, what’s the difference between Pinnock’s view of prophesy and Sanders.
Here’s C.T. quote, “Dr. Sanders holds that many biblical predictions about the future in Scripture may not come to pass as described," said the nine-member committee. "However, in his view, these are not errors. In the Committee's view, a statement about the future that does not come to pass is erroneous, provided that there are no other textual or historical indications conditioning the prophecy. On the basis of these considerations, it is the judgment of the Committee that Dr. Sanders' view is incompatible with the Doctrinal Basis of ETS as understood by the framers and as broadly understood by ETS members.”
How can Pinnock disagree with Sanders’ view of inerrancy? Especially if Clark agrees with God changing her/his mind in the past (e.g. Nineveh just to name one). Doesn’t this open the possibility of future prophesy not coming to pass (e.g. God changing her/his mind)? Now, with regards to Christ and salvation…well, that’s already been done…(you know the whole Christus Victor thing, i.e., already not yet…sooooo, no worries, right? So what’s the big deal with sanders’ view, and how does Pinnock disagree?
I like what ETS President David M. Howard and President-Elect Gregory K. Beale have to say, WELL MAYBE, OR KINDA…ANYWAYS…here it goes, “while calling his teaching "idiosyncratic, esoteric, perhaps even strange," said that this did not require that Sanders's be banished from the group because not all ETS members agreed on the definition of inerrancy.”
Warmly in Christ,
Tiggers
“The notion that God uses evils as a means to such higher goods is, … incompatible with the doctrine that he is omnipotent, and therefore does not need to use deplorable means to achieve his ends” (J.L. Mackie). | | Back to Top | | |
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DLW
Registered Member
Date Joined Apr 2003
Total Posts : 2457
| Posted 10/31/2003 12:35 PM (GMT -6) | | I believe Gary Dorrien's book gives some sociological insight into the matter. Historically, among white, Neo-Evangelicals, Calvinists have held leadership because their theology was more systematic than Armenians... Now, OVTheists come along saying that their theology is even more systematic and biblical than Calvinism and the long-run implications are a shift in the balance of power/leadership, which naturally will be opposed by those holding power.
Voltaire wrote a short-story once about a man who had grown up in the Americas unencumbered by European prejudices. This man, having come to France, was helping lead a Bible-study where they stumbled upon the passage, "thou shall not eat a griffin". After a pause, he concluded, "Well, if there be griffins let us not eat them and if there not be griffins let us eat even less of them!" However, in the study there was a theologian who had published several works on griffins and what was known about them, and not wanting his source of prestige devalued, he set about to discredit the hero as a heretic.
Likewise with Calvinists, since their root conception of God, Time and Creation are interpreted from an OVTheist point of view as nonsensical and dismissable, they don't want their source of prestige devalued...
This is not to devalue all theological work that has been done by Calvinists, but rather the historically privileged status it has been granted due to its rigorous consistency.
dlw
Niebuhr thought that sustained moral energy in politics depended on religion's power to mobilize reason along with self-transcending love. The prophetic tradition, meanwhile, gave Jews and Christians some protection against the temptation to identify their social causes with God's will. Lincoln's second inaugural address expressed the prophetic insight, "The almighty has His own purposes." | | Back to Top | | |
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honorman
Registered Member
Date Joined Oct 2002
Total Posts : 1137
| Posted 11/1/2003 2:33 AM (GMT -6) | | | I look at scripture this way: in the big mess that is my life, this is the mess God wants me to deciper, get to know, try to understand. In my mess, comes his mess. | | Back to Top | | |
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honorman
Registered Member
Date Joined Oct 2002
Total Posts : 1137
| Posted 11/1/2003 6:08 AM (GMT -6) | | | | |
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DLW
Registered Member
Date Joined Apr 2003
Total Posts : 2457
| Posted 11/1/2003 6:27 AM (GMT -6) | | Uh-huh, uh-huh, Yeah, that's the way Ah laaauhke it.
dlw | | Back to Top | | |
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One Love
Registered Member
Date Joined Jan 2003
Total Posts : 13888
| Posted 11/1/2003 6:30 AM (GMT -6) | | Scott:
quote:
In part, though, I think some of the confusion over the meaning of "inerrant" has to be laid at the feet of those who just can't seem to bring themselves to disassociate from the term. But words don't get to mean what we personally interpret them to mean; they mean what at least one sizeable group in the community agrees that they mean, and if we don't like it, we should invent another word. Like it or not, "inerrancy" throughout the 20th century and into the 21st has predominantly meant "total" and "factual" and "literal" - Hodge, Geisler, etc have won that battle over the definition - that is why we have other terms like "infallibilist" to describe other positions. I've given up on inerrancy (can't stand its special-pleading anymore) and am not afraid to say it and don't understand why, for example, Clark and the dozens of others like him in ETS can't do so as well. I can only conclude it is because rejecting inerrancy makes it sound as if one is saying "scripture is tainted by what even God (if he exists) considers to be mistakes he wishes weren't there" - and who wants to paint themselves with that big ol' target?
A-FRIGGIN-MEN!
I guess I won’t be joining the ETS anytime soon. I don't have the flexibility for such qualification gymnastics. Woe is me. Heh. 
"I've been converted three times. The first was to traditional Christianity; the second to honesty and the third was to the Love of God and man (humanity) The third was the real conversion. The first two were preliminary."
--Nels Ferre, a theologian speaking of his spiritual journey with the Triune God
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Ochuk
Registered Member
Date Joined Apr 2003
Total Posts : 102
| Posted 11/3/2003 10:23 AM (GMT -6) | | | | |
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Newcomb
Registered Member
Date Joined Jul 2001
Total Posts : 116
| Posted 11/19/2003 6:21 AM (GMT -6) | | This all needs to be looked at objectively. Any system must have some types of protection to differentiate it from other systems and to protect and preserve it.
Systems of thought or teaching systems are no different. Change is seen as a threat to the system itself.
This isn't really about theology; it is about protecting a system of teaching and thought. Those protection mechanisms need to be in place or they could believe anything. We OV people wouldn't allow that either, though currently I am unaware of a systematized group of OV people.
I learned from those articles that Clark is Charismatic. I am not. One of the nice things about not having organized theological groups like ETS is that we can simply agree to disagree on tertiary issues, and it really doesn't make that much of a difference. This is how the church ought to function especially before we know the final truth (i.e., before we are like Christ, therefore before we are in heaven or he returns.)
I see this as a more positive sign that I thought. When systems are challenged, the reaction is often “get out and stay out” as it was with me 17 years ago at my church, they meant it. So the fact that the response has been relatively mild resistance indicates that perhaps “we” have done a good job of pointing to past understandings within the church (which fights an irrational idea that any new thought is wrong because it is new), and that the exegesis is good enough and arguments well enough developed that “we” are winning the day.
I am greatly encouraged.
Here is an interesting analogy to becoming entrenched in a teaching system:
How did the width of two Roman horses back ends influence the Space Shuttle design?
The solid rocket boosters needed to travel to the launch site through train tunnels so they could only be as large as the smallest tunnel would allow riding on top of a train car.
The train tunnels are designed to fit the largest loads the trains were expected to hold.
The width of trains in the US were set long ago by the original designers or the train cars who used their existing gauges that they had used for their carriages and wagons (cartwrights), so a train in the US uses the same gauge as the width of work wagons from 300 years ago. If you have a rut, either you use a width that fits the rut or your axle breaks because it doesn’t fit the system. See? (This can be used for an argument not to use roads or to repair roads, as we do today, much as OV is trying to repair ruts in theology cut through the years.)
What gauge did they use? That of the same trade in Europe.
How was the European wagon wheel width set? It was set to fit the ruts in the roads of Europe. The ruts were, of course, cut over 1500 years of travel by other carriages. The earliest of these ruts were, of course, cut in the Roman roads by the Roman chariots, so other wagon and chariot makers used the same width to prevent damage. To get out of ruts, you use pavement in the cities so you can maneuver. (This idea spread even in Roman times but is not even now universally applied because the cost is too high.)
The Roman chariot was set by an early engineer who designed it to fit well behind two Roman horses linked with the appropriate gear to haul the chariot.
This is an engineering system that quite literally was stuck in a rut. It is much easier for any though system to do so the first time a strong and emphatic leader arises. We are sheep, people like to be led. People generally don’t like to think. It is hard work.
"Neuk'em" | | Back to Top | | |
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