Angst and a Quote

Tim or Naomi posted a great quote by B.H. Carrol about creeds today.  I quickly put it in my collection of quotes, with proper attribution, both for the quote and where I found it.

I didn't always do that.  I've been collecting quotes for well over 25 years now and in the beginning, I wasn't so careful about recording WHO made the quote or WHERE I had come across it.  Today's quote is a case in point.  I have no idea who wrote the words I am sharing with you today.  It runs in my mind that it may have been J. Gresham Machen, but I honestly don't know.  Google didn't help.  Maybe one of my readers will know.  I'd be grateful to know.

I would also like to remind everyone of the logical conclusion of certain lines of thought.

If you say that confessions are fallible, you must include your own. Everyone who has believed the Bible's words are true has a confession to make. The authors of the WCF and various other confessions, were making a single common confession. This is what we believe the Bible teaches. Certainly, these confessions do not equal the Bible in places they are untrue, which is why they are fallible and the Bible is not. But when the position is taken that confessions are fallible, the person making such a statement also places his own confession into this as well.

Individual confessions are not warranted from Scripture. The writer of Hebrews does not encourage us to hold fast to your confession, but hold fast to our confession. I am in no way saying that the writer had the WCF in mind when he wrote these words, but the concept should be clear. It is our confession, it is what we believe collectively. What we believe, then, becomes a gloss, not only for our fathers, but for our children. What do we learn? We learn our confession. What do we teach? We teach our confession.

The fallacy of believing that holding to confessions is more impure than holding to no confession at all has the logical conclusion of placing one's own confession above all else. There is no one man who has infallibly interpreted Scripture. Therefore, the impurity of the confession is more with an individual, than it is with a corporate expression of the body of Christ. Just because we have examples of profane and blasphemous confessions, does not mean that all confessions are not to be trusted.

Additionally, where are we told to be individual in the body of Christ? Where are we told to form our own opinion? Where are we told that the Spirit speaks and illumines our individual efforts above the corporate efforts? Yes, the Bereans did search for themselves, but we are mistaken if we think that each one went to his own house and made his own discoveries. The Christian faith is not about the individual. God has a people. God does not have persons.

Summary: Everyone has a confession. If the WCF and LBCF and the others are fallible, how much more so must the confession be of the individual who picks and chooses. If the councils are fallible, how much more so must be the individual who does not agree with them. (I am speaking of the ecumenical ones, not heretical.) We know that here, we see through a glass, dimly. We know we are fallible. We know that we err in several places. We know that the whole truth of God resides in the Scriptures. And, by faith, we have produced for us, a gloss of those truths. We do not believe in the gloss. We believe that the gloss is as faithful as it can be to that which we truly believe and place our faith in - The Holy Scriptures.

Everyone has a confession. I choose to believe in a common one, rather than one of my making, even where I do not understand.

Comments

[Elle]

Wow! That's a good quote. I truly hope that someone will know to whom to attribute it. In the meanwhile, I appreciate your posting it as well as its clarity about the value of confessions.

[Kyle]

Kim,

Unfortunately, I do not know who is responsible for that quote. I don't believe I've ever seen it before.

You are right that the corporate nature of the church is severely underappreciated in most circles. Christians have too frequently adopted the extreme individualism that now surrounds us. Religion is largely considered a matter of personal opinion and preferrence. It's the only way to get around the natural dissonance of a multiculture.

[Naomi]

Kim,
Wish I knew and could help you! Excellent quote though!

Naomi