Progressive Orthodoxy
C. Michael Patton has an interesting post today taken from his introduction to theology students.
I would particularly like any number of the folks in the various Sunday School classes I teach to absorb some of the material. This is not because I generally agree. I perceive myself to be both to the left and well to the Arminian side of his theology. Yet there are a number of point there that especially many of my Methodist brethren do not understand about either Reformed theology or in general of evangelical theology.
The first of those items is the definition of sola scriptura. Use that phase in most Methodist churches, in my experience, and people think of a complete rejection of tradition even in terms of the method in which we approach and understand scripture. Thus most of these same Methodists reject sola scriptura.
Patton describes it thus:
2. Scriptural Orthodoxy. This is the belief that Scripture alone sets the bounds of orthodoxy without any (or minimal) aid from the historic body of Christ. This should not be mistaken for sola Scripturathe belief that the Scripture is our final and only infallible authority in matters of faith and practicebut as a radical rejection of any other sources of authority such as the church, tradition, natural revelation, etc. It is often referred to as solo Scriptura or nuda Scriptura. Here, there would not be minimal (if any) authority derived from the body of Christ, historic or contemporary, as an interpretive community that either fallibly or infallibly has the ability to define orthodoxy. Adherents would often be found saying, No creed but the Bible.
The second would be the idea of progressive understanding, or “illumination” as illustrated in the various graphics. He describes that as follows:
6. Progressive Orthodoxy. This is the belief that the ultimate authority for the Christian faith is found only in the Scriptures (sola Scriptura) and that orthodoxy is a progressive development of the Churchs understanding of the Scriptures. …
Patton is an advocate of progressive orthodoxy.
I believe I fall a bit to the left of that position, because I fail to see the clear line between “revelation” and “illumination” that comes at the end of the canon. I accept that we can, and indeed have, developed doctrine past the revelation of the canon, but I don’t see the hard and fast line. In a sense, the “nuda scriptura” folks (to borrow from Patton’s definition) have a point in that if the canon is complete, why would it not define such doctrines as the trinity if, in fact, the trinity is an essential. It’s interesting to me that many who claim the Bible alone in this narrower sense do accept the doctrine of the trinity, even though it seems to me that it requires some Christian tradition to get to what I would call the orthodox doctrine at least.
I appreciate also the essentials/non-essentials distinction, which many folks have a hard time making. It’s too easy to make the essentials be totally coterminous with their personal belief system. I wrote about this in a post Unity, Diversity, and Confusion, in which I argue that you must have some core of common belief, but you can also have way to much required common belief.
I continued this theme in several posts, notably Excessively Large Tent = Crash, and Christian Essentials – Incarnation at the Center, in which I discuss where I start in defining essential doctrines. Each of those posts provides links to my own further discussion.
Hi, this will be my first comment on your blog. This is how *I* see the difference between revelation and illumination. Sometimes as I’m reading scripture, it’s like I want to smack myself on the head as it becomes clear. That’s illumination. Revelation is finished. Canon is closed. He has revealed all He is going to reveal from Genesis to the last word in Revelation. In other words, He may illuminate something to me that He’s already revealed in scripture. (I have no idea if I made any sense).
Okay, this is how I found your blog – hope it’s okay to post it here with this response. I have a blog and I keep seeing my “Moderatte Christian Aggregator” in my dashboard. I have found some cool blogs from there to read. Don’t know how you found me as I’m a rather new blogger (started at the end of January of this year) — but thanks.
So – sure hope this is okay — but what’s up with the spiders? I HATE spiders — they scare me. As I’m clicking through your blog, I finally had to hang a kitchen towel over that part of my screen. What I was doing was closing my eyes but only peeking a little bit to see when the screen changed to the new page and then quickly scrolling down so the spider doesn’t show. I can send you some really cool pics if you want 🙂 and that way I can really enjoy your blog without hanging a kitchen towel on my screen just to read your blog.
Anyway, you do have a great blog but would be better without the spiders. 🙂
I’m still hazy on the dividing line between revelation and illumination. It sounds artificial to me. I believe God can speak at any time. I think there is a good dividing line between canonical scripture, and what I might hear from God in my morning devotions, but isn’t in the nature of the information.
On the spiders, well, I’m afraid I like them. I have lots of other pictures too, but I really think the colored spider, who lives just outside my office, is quite beautiful. I’m sorry this bothers you.
LOL, it’s your site so you can have as many spiders as you want. Just makes it harder for me but in the scheme of things, who cares? 🙂 I just know to get a kitchen towel and put it over the top part of my screen when I want to read your blog.
Oh sure, God CAN speak still but does He? As we know, we’re getting all kinds of “revelations” that somehow end up as false. For starters, I could name off a huge list of people thought to be the anti-Christ. Latest one is Obama.
In the bible, God only spoke through the prophets and apostles. And each established who they were — that is they established they were speaking for God through through miracles and signs. As I heard someone say, if someone is raising the dead from their graves, you got my attention. It was those kinds of miracles that God used to establish those who spoke for Him as speaking for Him.
Too bad I don’t like spiders 🙂 — I learned to dislike them when I was in Africa. They have HUGE ones there. Yikes!
Hmmm! On the spiders, I wouldn’t say I don’t care, it’s just that I DO like them …
I think I may do some more writing on revelation and illumination. I can see some distinction, but the boundary line is very, very hazy.