“Infallibility” in the Early Church - Brad Jersak

“Infallibility” in the Early Church 

The ‘Infallibility’ of Scripture

Current attempts to understand the ‘violence texts’ of the Old Testament in light of the nonviolent revelation of God in Christ have been renewed with vigor in recent years.

Eric Siebert (Disturbing Divine Behavior), David Lamb (God Behaving Badly), Thomas Römer (Dark God), Paul Copan (Is God a Moral Monster?), Eryl Davies (The Immoral Bible), Michael Hardin (Jesus Driven Life) and Peter Enns (The Bible Tells Me So) are among the host of scholars who address the problem of the so-called ‘toxic texts’ of the Hebrew Scriptures in an effort to read them in the light of the Father revealed by Christ. 

More recently, Derek Flood’s must-read book, Disarming Scripture, caught the attention of Gregory Boyd (who is also writing an epic tome on the topic). While I know these two teachers have much in common, Boyd took Flood to task on the question of “biblical infallibility.” He began a four-part blog critique, beginning with a post entitled “Must We Deny Biblical Infallibility to ‘Disarm’ Scripture?” Derek blogged a series of responses, beginning with his post, “A Reply to Greg Boyd’s Critique of Disarming Scripture.”

For my part, I would like to affirm both men for modeling a gracious exchange between Christians on a matter of striking disagreement. If only this were the common standard: charitable dissent without hostility. Well done, I say.

Second, to distill the exchange down to its essential feature, Boyd argued for ‘biblical infallibility’ and Flood argued against it … however, Flood rightly noted how they did not necessarily agree even on the definition of ‘infallibility,’ which could reasonably cause them to argue past each other. While the tension is in part a verbal one, I think they would both say it goes deeper than that. That is, even if they could come to a mutually shared definition of ‘infallible,’ they would still disagree as to whether the word should or should not be used as a descriptor for the Bible.

Third, this leads to a particular question that does not solve the problem, but may speak to its background. Namely, what did the early church teach about infallibility? I’ll pose the question as Derek asked it.  

Q: Would you say that the church fathers taught the "infallibility" of Scripture?

This strikes me as wrong. Inspiration yes, but infallibility? Do you know of any articles or books that deal with this (whether infallibility was something taught by the early church)? What does the Orthodox Church say? 

My response (expanded for this article):

Based in my late-coming knowledge and brief surveys of the early church fathers, 'infallible' was indeed a word they employed, but not with reference to Scripture. The 'infallibility of the Bible,' as best as I can tell, is a specifically Protestant notion, introduced as a point of leverage (under sola scriptura) in order to cut itself loose from the authority of the Vatican and from church tradition. An infallible Bible then becomes the final authority for faith and practice. Unfortunately, ‘an infallible Bible’ is often a code for ‘my interpretation of the Bible,’ and the schisms go viral.

On the other hand, while the early Greek fathers definitely speak of the 'inspiration of Scripture' they reserve the word 'infallible' for the Holy Spirit and the Spirit’s guidance as they preserved the gospel (the ‘canon of faith’ or ‘faith once delivered’ – Jude 3) and summarized it in the creeds as they convened the early councils. That is, only God himself is the infallible Subject. 

For source material on this, see this summary: http://www.ccel.org/ccel/schaff/creeds1.iii.iii.html

Note these important points:

1. Originally, the 'canon' did not refer to authorized collections of Scripture! Rather, from the 2nd century at least, the church spoke of 'the canon of faith,' which is to say, 'the faith once delivered,' by which they meant the apostolic gospel itself.

A good, early example of ‘the canon of faith’ is found in 1 Corinthians 15:3-4: “For what I received I passed on to you as of first importance: that Christ died for our sins according to the Scriptures, that he was buried, that he was raised on the third day according to the Scriptures.” Notice that the canon of faith is not something composed: it is received and it is passed down. From Christ to the apostles to the church.

By this canon—this ruler, this standard—the fathers measured what should or should not be included in the New Testament. Books that measured up to the canon of faith—to the gospel—were favored for inclusion; books that did not were excluded. Others were debated, right until the end of the fourth century. That is, the ‘canon of faith’ was established by Christ and his apostles from the beginning, but the ‘canon of Scripture’ was hotly contested and in fact, differs from Protestant to Catholic to East Orthodoxy and beyond … to this day!

As a young Protestant, it troubled me that the originators of sola scriptura were, ironically, also willing to cut whole books out of the Bible fifteen hundred years after the fact. They claimed the Bible was infallible, but were willing to shrink it down to fit their new theological systems. This kind of mastery over the text betrayed the Reformers alleged commitment to the text. But I digress.

2. This 'canon of faith,' since it represented a summary of the gospel, was preserved and then standardized and dogmatized in the creeds. The councils believed that the Holy Spirit infallibly guided them, not to compose prescriptive doctrines enshrined in the creeds, but rather, they saw their task as remembering the gospel they had received—i.e. the truth claims of Christ. They were conscious of Jesus' promise that the Spirit of truth would guide them into all truth (John 16:12-15) – that is, the truth of who Jesus is and what he has done. It was essential then that the councils, led by the Holy Spirit, would remember the gospel and articulate it finally and infallibly in the first creeds. 

3. What agrees with the canon of faith is 'canonical.' Based on this confidence, a little more history: Athanasius is the hero in the aftermath of the Nicene council (325). We can imagine him using the original Nicene Creed as he compiles, for the very first time, the exact table of contents for the NT that we use today. There was still much debate after that about what should be included. In fact even after the completion of the Creed (also known as ‘the Symbol of Faith’) at the second council (381), the chairman (Gregory the Theologian of Nazianzus) still openly opposed the inclusion of Revelation. And St. Chrysostom excludes it altogether from use in worship in his Divine Liturgy (still used today in the East). Only in the 390's was Revelation finally and formally included.

This is hugely significant, for it means that when we say the NT books are 'canonical,’ we mean they were judged to be in alignment with the 'canon' (the gospel itself as summarized in the creeds). ‘Canonical’ doesn’t mean ‘in the Bible’ so much as it means ‘what agrees with the gospel gets to go in the Bible.’ So at that point, which had more or final authority? In practice, which is treated as the object and measure of the Spirit's infallible guidance? 

4. Thus, it is the Holy Spirit who is infallible. And specifically, the guidance of the Spirit is infallible ... first, the guidance of the Spirit in remembering and identifying the apostolic faith, and second, the guidance of the Spirit in selecting Scriptures for use in the churches by measuring them with the 'canon of faith.' 

The Philocalia of Origen

In terms of the early church, by far the most authoritative teaching on the inspiration and interpretation of Scripture was a collection of Origen's (184-253 AD) teachings called the Philocalia of Origen (gathered in the late 300’s). Even though a much later version of Origen-ism was condemned 300 years after his death, Origen’s interpretive approach to the Bible was taken as the dominant standard for centuries. It is especially noteworthy that Gregory of Nazianzus (chair of the second council) and his friend, Basil the Great (to whom we owe much for our belief in the full divinity of the Holy Spirit), were the bishops who gathered Origen’s work. They saw its value and wanted to republish it for the church.

The pertinent fact for our question is that the Philocalia frequently uses the term 'inspiration' for Scripture, but the only time you get some sense of 'infallible' in the whole document is in the phrase 'the knowledge of God is infallible' (as in God's knowledge). In other words, the word ‘infallible’ is an attribute assigned to God alone—to the truth that he is all-knowing.

Readers can see the entire book HERE (free) with the added benefit that it is easily searchable. While modern interpreters would part company with him on some fronts, I am amazed at the helpful (an provocative) way he organizes his hermeneutical system into:

1. Literal sense

By the literal sense, Origen was not referring to the folly of biblical literalism. Rather, the began with the thorough textual work to faithful discover what the text actually says. Some have reduced Origen’s legacy of interpretation to allegory, but that is not where he starts. He carefully begins by ensuring the best manuscripts are available. Then he proceeds to discern and distinguish which texts represent literal history from those that he acknowledges as fictitious history.

2. Moral sense

The moral sense follows 2 Timothy 3:16-17, affirming that since the OT is regarded as Scripture, then it must be useful to Christians. This isn’t merely about using the Bible to moralize. Rather, Bible interpretation demands that we discern how to preach it as the gospel message and how to use it to develop growing Christian disciples. This limits the uses of the OT toxic texts to that which can be applied to Christ-centered gospel preaching and Christlike exhortation. For example, you can’t use a text where the Philistines are slaughtered to call for the slaughter of infidels, but rather, only for proclaiming Christ’s victory over the nonhuman enemies of Satan, sin and death and our own victories over the spirit of pride or malice, etc. within ourselves.

3. Mystical sense

The mystical sense argues that all Scripture must be used to point to Jesus Christ, or it is of no use to us. How might any given OT text point to Christ and his gospel? Here Origen can be justly accused of excessive allegory, but in fact, he is saying that to preserve the OT from the Marcionites (or from Bill Maher, for that matter), we must remember it is a Christian book, and therefore, always pursue and determine a Christ-centered reading of it. Here, Origen is simply following the lead of Christ, who said to the disciples on the Road to Emmaus:

"This is what I told you while I was still with you: Everything must be fulfilled that is written about me in the Law of Moses, the Prophets and the Psalms.” Then he opened their minds so they could understand the Scriptures.” (Luke 24:44-45).

Where is infallibility in that moment? In the Scriptures? Or in the infallible Son of God who opens their minds to understand the Scriptures—and how they point to him? So just as with the phrase, ‘the Word of God,’ I am not quite ready to discard the term, ‘infallible,’ but rather, would prefer to follow the early church in using both as a designation for God himself. God, the infallible Word. God, the infallible Spirit. 

Following Hebrews 1, this infallible God has revealed himself to us in various times, in multiple ways, inspiring prophets and apostles to testify of their encounters and revelations, culminating in the perfect revelation of the Infallible and Incarnate Son, who alone has infallibly finally known God and shown God to us. “No one has ever seen God. God's only Son, the one who is closest to the Father's heart, has made him known” (John 1:18).

Comments

[Robert]

Brad- I think you,Derek and Greg Boyd amongst others are on to even more issues regarding the Bible. If the Bible is of utmost importance and plays such a monumental role in our realtionship to Jesu, why then was it allowed to be kept from people for a long time by the Roman Catholic Church?? Why are there so many people who have never read it, others who don't understand it and even more who wrongly misinterpret??? (sorry calvinists and dispensationalists) I keed i keed :D

A huge question for me is how do we handle trusting Jesus as the only *Word of God* and doing so rightly as God intends if we cannot rely on the Bible to be the authority it appears to have been since God provided for the first prophecies about Him?? Without the Bible how do we avoid a totally subjective,arbitrary faith??

[eric]

A useful commentary.. I've read the blogs back and forth by Boyd and Flood and worried that Flood was indeed playing "loose' with scripture. but you give me a way to understand.

[Florian Berndt]

Very enlightening! I was just thinking that in the roman catholic background of my childhood I learned that there is no contradiction between Scripture and tradition, because the Bible is seen as part of the grreat tradition itself.

And while this view might bring its own problems with it, its clear that the reformation didn't clear them up as most of the reformers employed their own interpretations to justify less than Christ-like behaviours.

One just doesn't get around Jesus when interpreting Scripture. But then again, isn't that the point? And obviously Jesus Himself already encountered this issue Himself...