THE ORDINATION DEBATE AND THE SOLA SCRIPTURA

 

This submission aims to identify a significant doctrinal issue that has not been addressed in the ordination debate.  It is the doctrine of Original Sin and the human condition, both fallen and sanctified in faith, as taught by the Lutheran Church in its Confessions.  This doctrine relates directly to hermeneutics because it involves not only the Scriptures, but also the interpreters of the Scriptures.  Of particular concern, then, is the first article in LTJ, May 2005, Hermeneutics and the Ordination of Women.

 

A Reformation Confession and the World

 

The LCA is dangerously close to losing the sola scriptura.  It is, in various ways, conceding the word of God to a human presumption, pride and arrogance that prevents an authentic humility sought for in every aspect of the church’s life today.  This happens when the church does not take seriously its confessional responsibility in the world and against the world. In Scriptural terms this refers to the ‘world’ as people whose ‘wisdom’ [1 Cor.1-2, etc.] is opposed to the will of God and his church, and is under satan, the prince of this world.  It is then predominantly church dogma in its key articles that is most acutely under attack by the world, and this by the prevailing human philosophy or philosophies.  These ideologies, secular or religious in their approach, drive popular culture and therefore target the faithful.

 

A major dynamic of the Lutheran Reformation, under God, was Luther’s distilling and freeing of scriptural truth from encumbrance by human philosophy in the teachings of the church.  This required dealing with both medieval scholasticism and renaissance humanism: to proclaim the gospel clearly, for faith in God’s forgiving grace in Christ in relation to the human condition, redeemed, and though sanctified, also still prone to sin with its original sinfulness. 

 

In his Bondage of the Will, Luther clarifies where the fallible human will and reason stand before the sovereignty of God in his word.  Here is the crux of the sola scriptura that the Lutheran reformers pioneered for the church universal.  In his response to Erasmus’ Freedom of the Will, Luther addressed issues of human presumption coming to the fore in the theology of this great advocate of humanism.  The issues included taking ‘refuge in the opinion of the Skeptics’[trans. and ed., Rupp and Watson: 37], his dislike of ‘assertions’ [i.e. confessing biblical truths], the obscurity of Scripture, and his elevating of tradition.  For Luther, there is a Spirit inspired clarity in Scripture. It is sinful human presumption that interferes with the understanding and meaning of the text.

 

Post-modern Ideology

 

We need to note the course that humanist philosophy has taken since the 16th Century.  While the number of great and wonderful human discoveries has escalated, so has human estimation of his/her natural potential.  Accordingly, recognition of God’s sovereignty has been diminished to the extent that post-modernism today deconstructs human beings, only to have them usurp—whether consciously or not-- a divine status for themselves, ‘the god in me’.  In this sense post-modernism takes on a religious dimension, in spite of its otherwise secular focus.  Law and truth are deconstructed to become relative to what the social group in particular [if not also the individual] want to make them.  All have the right to their own truth. 

 

A Christian confession of faith then becomes politically incorrect, to be quashed and outlawed.  The post-modern hermeneutic is characterised by skepticism.   Any truth held to be objective is made suspect, and any number of alternative truths then hold a validity of their own, not to be disputed. The impact of this on the interpretation of Scripture is serious enough.  But an added claim is that the meaning of language is determined by the social group, so that the meaning of language is then a cultural creation.  In this way the post-modern hermeneutic can move from manipulation to massacre of an objective claim to truth, in fact, a doctrine of the church.

 

How much has the church helped our people understand and deal with the tremendous pressure of what has now become a vast spiritual and social deception?  If we have not recognised the attack on Scripture that this represents, we need to recognise it now, and urgently.  The effect of sin in human hubris cries out in the brokenness of society and family, and in increasing mental sickness.  Writers, leaders and theologians of all the major Christian denominations are now addressing the implications of post-modern philosophy and culture for the church.  [Among the most recent is the Anglican Primate of Australia, Dr. Phillip Aspinall in his inaugural speech.]

 

The hermeneutical Difficulty

 

Discussion on the ordination issue has been called for in LCA Church groups.  In  regard to both exegesis and hermeneutics, it has become very clear that there is a deep division between the two parties to the debate.  To claim that both agree on hermeneutical rules [p.11. LTJ 39/1] is misleading for the church.  It shows only that there is a foreign element in that agreement that has not been exposed.  Nor does that element appear in what follows on pages11-15.  Readers are left with two opposing claims to biblical truth.  The articles that follow further illustrate this, and show that the claim of agreement to the rules does not ring true.  But for this article, the situation for debate is already hermeneutically post-modern, with multiple truths in the one bed.

 

A further claim to agreement comes in the section entitled, Church and Culture, where it states that ‘both sides agree that the matter of culture is not a critical issue’[21].  For the writer it is a totally legitimate statement to say that ‘culture is not a critical issue’.  This is because he takes it for granted that he can take a post-modern hermeneutic as framework and direction for the article.  For him it is quite legitimate to be a skeptic in post-modern terms and present a range of human opinions with a show of support for Luther and Lutheran teaching and at the same time making it all suspect. 

 

It is an equally post-modern, humanist, strategy to present such a range of human opinion, [objecting mostly only to the most radical secular writers] in a show of openness for others, leaving readers then to determine truth for themselves.  This becomes a power process to disarm confession by creating a confusion of thought and a frustration that then submits to the writer’s own agenda.  The field of opinion is laid open to bring marginal thought to the centre more easily, as happens in ensuing articles that support the ordination of women.  But it is not only power over people.  It is an expression of asserting human power over the word of God and his sovereignty.

         

A subsequent article, on the other hand, opposing the ordination of women, shows that the matter of culture is critical.  The article addresses the dangerous effects on the church of ‘powerful cultural and philosophical forces in our society’ [53].  The discerning reader will notice an entirely different approach to Scripture in that article.  It is one of submission and confession of faith in relation to the word of God.

 

Culture is an up-front issue today and must be dealt with seriously in relation to Scripture.  There are aspects of our church life that need to be modified to ‘meet people where they are at’.  But that is another matter.  Here we are concerned with the Scriptural direction that needs to be provided. 

 

It is only half true to claim that ‘God’s revelation, and therefore Scripture, is always tied to a particular culture’ (21).  Scripture uses language and imagery that can be universally understood.  Indeed, God’s word is free to enter every culture, and where it has entered the cultures of biblical times by means of their languages to become God’s word in human words, it spoke grace and judgement in various linguistic forms, and continues to speak that way to every age.  In the same way as Christ, the incarnate Word was immersed in and occupied the culture, he could not be bound to it’s sinfulness.  The cultural issue is not new.  Luther had this response for Erasmus:

 

Who has empowered you or given you the right to bind Christian doctrine to places, persons, times or causes when Christ wills it to be proclaimed and to reign throughout the world in entire freedom?  ‘The word of God is not bound,’ says Paul (2 Tim. 2:9); and will Erasmus bind the Word?  God has not given us a Word that shows partiality in respect of persons, places or times. (Rupp and Watson: 132).

 

This applies also to Paul’s words in 1 Cor. 14:37, ‘What I am writing to you is a command of the Lord’.  The claim that this command of the Lord in regard to women’s voice in the church was only for the local situation at that time is a most blatant ploy of this cultural deviation from Scripture.

 

Luther’s contention with Erasmus on the sola scriptura mirrors the debate in the LCA today.  The hermeneutical question is still that of the authority of human wisdom in relation to God’s sovereignty in Scripture.  The same subjectivity applies to the incursion of ‘Reader Responsiveness’ into our hermeneutic.  This continues to accept contradictory proposals side by side as truths.  The doctrine of original sin and the status of man/woman before God must be included in this debate.

 

The article, Hermeneutics and the Ordination of Women, reveals two things.  One is that the article uses a post-modern hermeneutical setting.  The other is then that this hermeneutic is serving the case for the ordination of women, engaging even the title.  The two are intimately linked, and the post-modern hermeneutic can then be traced in the other articles that advocate the ordination of men and women.  When this hermeneutic is given a vanguard position in the LTJ as the theological journal of the LCA, the extent of post-modern power pressure on our Church becomes clear for all to see.  But where do we see the Church resisting this pressure? 

 

The reason for omitting two important resources from the references in LTJ is equally clear.  One is the book, Postmodern Times, a Christian guide to contemporary Thought and Culture by Gene Edward Veith (Crossway. 1994).  He is a Lutheran who analyses the culture of our time and clarifies the way in which a post-modern ‘hermeneutic of suspicion’(53ff) undermines both society and the Christian faith.  The other resource is by Dr. Hermann Sasse who was a leading contributer to the LCA teaching on Scripture, and whose theological direction always took into account the prevailing philosophy or ideology.  In May, 1971, he provided a feature article for The Lutheran, ‘The Ordination of Women?’ opposing the LCA adopting it.

 

A second Case Scenario

 

The case outlined above presumes there is only one final collator or writer for the article on hermeneutics.  If, on the other hand there are two, each responsible for their own case, the situation changes markedly.

 

The culturally biased framework or setting remains the same.  As mentioned, the case for the ordination of women can rest comfortably inside of this because it can easily accommodate marginal arguments being brought to the centre.  In contrast to this, a confessional writer who evaluates the divine and the human in Reformation terms, in terms of God’s sovereignty and the capacity of sinful man, is in a contradictory, if not intolerable situation.  It is virtually an imprisonment of confession and the confessor, especially if he must remain anonymous (Matt. 10:32).  It is here that the Church’s teaching on human capacity and Original Sin (CA 2) becomes particularly evident.

 

The conflict becomes clearer when, as mentioned above, it is realised that post-modernism always involves the exercise of human power play against holding an objective truth, that is a confession of biblical faith.  To what extent does the situation of the hermeneutics article and confession image the dilemma of the LCA today?  We do have a spiritual conflict to deal with.

 

When the article on hermeneutics ends to say that ‘[b]oth sides submit to the authority of Scripture’, it is vital to realise that this same claim was made by parties opposing the Lutheran Reformation.  The Lutheran response is always under attack, because it aims to remain faithful to Christ and his Word, and not let the incursion of competing human claims contradict it.  Postmodernism is now being recognised, also by secular writers, as ending only in meaninglessness and purposelessness.  If the LCA wants to attach itself to its lure with a further increase also of ungodly church-political pressure, then it is inviting the same result.  Are we hearing again the words, “saying, ‘Peace’, when there is no peace”[Ezek. 13:10]?  When the sola scriptura is lost, so also is the sola gratia, the sola fide and the solus Christus. 

 

Luther’s words address also our Church today to remind us of the battle we are involved in to hold on to the glorious joy and peace of the Gospel that we have in Christ.

 

[Eternal life through the word of God] is so great a possession that no human heart can fathom it; and to keep it, necessitates an equally great and fierce fight.  It must not be taken lightly. Where the dear word is not held on to with all your might, you will lose it eternally.  And do not discredit it as the world and some senseless spirits do, deceived by the devil about the sacrament and other issues.  They would say you should not argue so hard about one article, etc., and through that lose Christian love, handing each other over to the devil.  What if you do err in a small point, and you are in union with others, you should give in a bit and let things go to keep brotherly and Christian unity or fellowship.

 

No, my friend, do not recommend to me peace and unity if God’s word is lost in the process; then eternal life and everything else would be lost.  In this matter there can be no yielding or giving way: no, not for love of you or any other person.  Everything must yield to the word, whether friend or foe.  The word was given to us for eternal life and not to further a worldly peace and unity.  The word and doctrine will create Christian unity and fellowship.  Where they reign, all else will follow.  Where they are not to be found, no unity will ever last.  Therefore don’t talk to me about any love or friendship if that means breaking away from the word or the faith.  For it is not said that love brings eternal life, God’s grace, and all heavenly treasures.  It is the word that does it.                                                

                                    Sermons from the year 1531 (29 October).            W.A. 34. II. 387.

 

For the Festival of the Reformation, 31st October, 2005,

Respectfully submitted,

 

 

Gordon Gerhardy, pastor.