02-15-2007 22:34

That Credal Thing

Okay, this is going to be a long one. Because it looks like we need to get definitional, doesn't it? 
 
In what follows, I will be drawing on the definitions and discussions of the terms "doctrine" and "dogma" contained in the following texts: 
 
1) Van A. Harvey, A Handbook of Theological Terms (Macmillan, 1964) 
2) Joseph A. Komonchak, Mary Collins and Dermot A. Lane, eds., The New Dictionary of Theology (Liturgical Press, 1987) 
3) Sinclair B. Ferguson, David F. Wright, and J. I. Packer, eds., New Dictionary of Theology (InterVarsity, 198 
4) Gerald O'Collins and Edward G. Farrugia, A Concise Dictionary of Theology (Paulist, 1991) 
5) E. A. Livingstone, The Concise Oxford Dictionary of the Christian Church (Oxford, 2000) 
 
I will also be drawing on the Greek text of the New Testament, and on various Quaker documents as you will see. 
 
I list these sources to make myself accountable -- you can look them up to see how I am using them, or suggest better alternatives if you please. 
 
The word "doctrine" means "teaching". In its most simplistic sense, Church doctrine may be defined as Church teaching in all its many forms. Similarly, Quaker doctrine may be defined as the teaching of our Religious Society in all the forms that teaching takes. Doctrine is intended not only to convey the ideas that define and shape our religion, but also to nourish religious life and worship. 
 
In the Christian world generally, the most basic doctrine is the kerygma about Christ's life, death, resurrection and rôle as Savior, which collectively set apart Christianity from all other religions. But there is room in Christianity for additional doctrine, or doctrines, beyond this nucleus, and the additional doctrines of the Church consist of all those other teachings that follow naturally from the words and deeds of Christ, and speak to particular times and circumstances in ways that are of benefit to seekers and believers. In some parts of the Christian world, for example the Roman Catholic church, these doctrines are fairly well organized and codified; in other parts, they are left more fluid. 
 
Turning then from the Christian world at large, to the Quaker world at large, we must distinguish between the different parts of the Quaker world: 
 
1) In the most emphatically Christian parts of the Quaker world, including EFI, the Holiness yearly meetings, the non-FGC portion of FUM, and some smaller communities elsewhere, the most basic doctrine is likewise the kerygma about Christ's life, death, resurrection and rôle as Savior. 
 
2) In the most traditional parts of the Quaker world, such as Ohio (Conservative) and scattered communities elsewhere, the most basic doctrine is probably the kerygma of the Holy Spirit and Christ's Presence in the midst. 
 
3) In the least Christian parts of the Quaker world, such as FGC, the independent Beanite yearly meetings, and Britain Yearly Meeting, the most basic doctrine is probably the teaching of the Light within each person. 
 
As with the rest of the Christian world, all parts of the Quaker world also have lesser doctrines, such as the doctrine of pacifism, the doctrine of simplicity, etc., that follow naturally from whatever source is pointed to by the basic doctrine, and that speak to particular times and circumstances. 
 
Now to "dogma". This is a concept that has evolved markedly through the centuries. 
 
The term "dogma" is derived from the Greek word meaning "that which seems good". Its archetypal use in the New Testament is in Acts 16:4, where it refers to the decisions of the Council of Jerusalem concerning (among other things) the admission of Gentiles to the young Church. Luke writes in Acts 16:4: "As they went through the towns, [Paul, Silas and Timothy] delivered to [their listeners] the things-which-seemed-good (dogmata) that had been arrived at by the apostles and elders in Jerusalem, (for them) to keep." 
 
And this passage, Acts 16:4, in turn refers us back to Luke's description of how the apostles and elders arrived at those same dogmata in Jerusalem -- a description which we may find in Acts 15:28, where we are told that the apostles and elders wrote, "It seemed good (edozen gar) to the Holy Spirit and to us, that nothing more should be imposed on you than these (minimally) necessary things...." We may note that the idea of something seeming good is described using different words in verse 15:28 from the word used in verse 16:4 -- edozen gar instead of dogmata -- and yet it is indisputably the same idea. In the book of Acts, therefore, a dogma is something that seems good to the Holy Spirit and to the weightiest members of the Church. 
 
Historically, the Christian Church took from this primordial dogma-story these three lessons: first, that dogmas are far more serious and binding than mere doctrines -- indeed, they must be utterly binding on true believers; second, that a dogma must be grounded in God's revelation, either immediately or (more commonly) via scripture; third, that a dogma cannot be established except by the highest authority of the Church, which in the Orthodox and Catholic world swiftly came to mean the high Church Councils. 
 
Of course, with the schism between Roman Catholicism and the Orthodox churches of the East, and later with the outbreak of the Reformation, there have been disagreements about exactly which Church Councils have had sufficient authority to establish (or clarify) dogmas. The Roman Catholic world recognizes all its Church Councils down to Second Vatican, and also the ex cathedra pronouncements of the Pope on faith and morals. The Eastern Orthodox and Anglican churches regard only seven Councils as sufficiently authoritative ("genuinely ecumenical"), and do not accept the claims to authority of the Pope. And the Reformed tradition -- the Protestant world outside Anglicanism -- accepts only four councils, so that, when it uses the term "dogma" at all, it restricts the application of the term to the formula of the Trinity and the christological formulations of those four councils. 
 
But the Roman Catholics, the Eastern Orthodox, the Anglicans, and the Reformed churches, would all unite behind Karl Rahner's description of what "dogma" means today: "A proposition which the Church explicitly propounds as revealed by God in such a way that its denial is condemned by the Church as heresy and anathematized." 
 
Note how much of a change this is from what the dogmata were in Acts 16:4. There was no threat of being branded a heretic or being anathematized in Acts 16:4. The apostles' hearers were "to keep" (psylassein, "to guard, to watch over, to protect, to preserve") what was being proclaimed to them, but this Greek verb does not mean "obey" as one obeys a commandment, it means "preserve" as one preserves an insight or a wisdom. Luke is describing a process in which Paul, Silas and Timothy were calling their hearers to rise to their best and do their very highest in response to this doing of the highest and best by the apostles and elders in Jerusalem. They were not laying down laws the violation of which would be punishable by anathematization. 
 
So the modern meaning of "dogma" in the Roman Catholic, Eastern Orthodox, Anglican and Reformed world, is a serious departure from the spirit of scripture. This is important. And the early Friends recognized that this was so. We might benefit by listening carefully to Friend Robert Barclay, in his early work The Anarchy of the Libertines, §VI: 
 
"...Here lay the debate: some thought it not needful to circumcise the Gentiles; others thought it a thing not to be dispensed with: and no doubt of these (for we must remember they were ... such as had already believed in Christ) there were [some] that did it out of conscience, as judging circumcision to be still obligatory. For they said thus, except ye be circumcised after the manner of Moses, ye cannot be saved. Now what course took the church of Antioch in these cases? Acts 15.2. They determined that Paul and Barnabas and certain other of them should go unto Jerusalem, unto the apostles and elders, about this question. We must not suppose they wanted the Spirit of God at Antioch to have decided the matter, neither that these apostles neglected or went from their inward guide in undertaking the journey; yet we see, they judged it meet in this matter to have the advice and concurrence of the apostles and elders that were at Jerusalem, that they might all be of one mind in the matter. For there is no greater property of the Church of Christ, than pure unity in the Spirit; that is, a consenting and oneness in judgment and practices in matters of faith and worship (which yet admits of different measures, growths and motions, but never contrary and contradictory ones... therefore prayeth Christ, That they all may be one, as he and the Father is one." 
 
And so the first Friends threw out even the four councils accepted by the Reformed tradition, regarding them as part of the period of apostasy -- for those Councils had never proceeded as the apostles and elders had done in Jerusalem, but had engaged in intellectualizing, and wrangling, and power struggles, never coming to true oneness, but neglecting the Holy Spirit. And the Friends determined to begin afresh, as the apostles and elders had begun in Jerusalem, with the example and teachings of Christ and the merciful, loving guidance of the Spirit. 
 
The first Friends put great store by the exact phrasing of Acts 15:28 -- the standard for early Quaker discernment was what seemed good to the Holy Spirit and to their weightiest members. Not what was logically derivable from this-and-that scriptural text or this-and-that theological proposition, but what seemed good. Thus did dogma, in the Quaker world, cease to be a matter of what one is supposed to believe intellectually, and became, instead, a matter of truths known in the heart, the conscience and the æsthetic sense. 
 
This decision to base dogma, not on logic and the intellect, but on the sense of "what seems good", had other consequences as well. Friends still anathematized those who departed from their dogmas in the first generation, but they learned fast from their hearts, and in later generations they only disowned those who departed from their dogmas, without shunning or excluding those they'd disowned. "Disownment" meant merely a public statement that the person disowned was not behaving as a Friend and had therefore been deprived of formal membership and of a rôle in the Quaker community's decision-making process. There was no longer any anathematizing, let alone any shunning, nor was there any pronouncement of "heresy". The gentleness of the heart melted down by Christ now ruled. 
 
The very word "dogma" was abandoned -- though the reality which the word points to, still survived. The declaration of 1660 established much basic dogma for Friends, even though it was not written as a creed. The writings of George Fox and Robert Barclay added further dogma. The lists of testimonies in the Quaker minute books of the eighteenth century, and in the Quaker books of discipline of the nineteenth centuries, were dogmatic lists: the teaching of these testimonies, as mandatory rules, was the teaching of the dogma of Quakerism, and those who behaved in a way that said they didn't accept this teaching were eldered and, if things went far enough, disowned. 
 
But whenever Friends elevated a teaching to dogmatic status, it was always under the oversight of councils of their weightiest members -- yearly meetings in which their ministers, elders and overseers had special weight -- who in turn were under, not just the corrective guidance, but the outright rule of the Holy Spirit. 
 
"Meet often together and wait upon God for his teaching alone in a cross to your own wills, for therein is the secrets of God revealed." -- Thus James Nayler, who was second only to George Fox himself in the early Quaker leadership, writing "to all dear Brethren and Friends in Holderness, and in the east parts of Yorkshire" in 1653. Note that bit about the "cross to your own wills": if the discernment did not contradict what the Friends involved would personally have preferred, the Friends involved were inclined to treat it as suspect. No one, even in the leadership, wanted to be ruled by the selfish desires of men. 
 
Were these Quaker dogmas, then, established by a human power structure? Some might still answer, Yes, they were. But Friends have historically testified otherwise. They would say that these things were made dogmas precisely because they seemed good to the Holy Spirit, and the weighty Friends who were present saw that this was so. The weighty Friends did not play the rôle of a power structure in this; they were simply a trusted agency of discernment, just as the apostles and elders in Jerusalem had been before them. The one real power in the picture was the Holy Spirit itself. All else was a matter of believers uniting around what the Holy Spirit had revealed. 
 
Here I quote from a document issued in 1925 by London Yearly Meeting's Revision Committee (the committee charged with formulating revisions of the yearly meeting's Book of Discipline): "It is in the unity of common fellowship, we believe, that we shall most surely learn the will of God. We cherish, therefore, the tradition which excludes voting from our meetings, and trust that clerks and Friends generally will observe the spirit of it, not permitting themselves to be influenced in their judgment either by mere numbers or by persistence. The clerk should be content to wait upon God with the meeting, as long as may be necessary for the emergence of a decision which clearly commends itself to the heart and mind of the meeting as the right one." 
 
This is not a description of how a human power structure determines things. It is a description of how a group of humans lets God determine things. And this is the process Friends have used in working out their dogmas, just as it is the process they have used in working out lesser decisions.

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