MetaCatholic

(This post is part of a series on the 39 articles of the Church of England)

I start this post on Article XV slightly baffled as to what its doing there in the first place. As far as I know (which isn’t, in all honesty, all that far) there were no significant debates about Christ’s unique state of being without sin going on at the time. The precise issue of Mary’s possible sinlessness was a relatively erudite dispute between theologians that was nowhere near being settled or presented as anything other than a pious opinion. Questions of the possibility of Christian perfection were still centuries away. Neither the Augsburg Confession nor the Westminster Confession have anything really comparable. Anyway, here’s the article.

XV. Of Christ alone without Sin
Christ in the truth of our nature was made like unto us in all things, sin only except, from which he was clearly void, both in his flesh, and in his spirit. He came to be the Lamb without spot, who, by sacrifice of himself once made, should take away the sins of the world, and sin, as Saint John saith, was not in him. But all we the rest, although baptized, and born again in Christ, yet offend in many things; and if we say we have no sin, we deceive ourselves, and the truth is not in us.

There is a rather odd conflation of texts: Hebrews 4:15 and 1 John 3:5 are clearly referred to, although the article conflates 4:15, where Jesus “in every respect has been tested as we are, yet without sin” with 2:17 “Therefore he had to become like his brothers and sisters in every respect.” This blurs a difference: the former refers to “being tested” and not sinning, the latter simply to sharing the same flesh and blood, with no mention of sin. Hebrews doesn’t share the view that sin is a sexually transmitted disease, and so does not conflate these two different statements. Then, linking and dominating the two explicit references is a traditional interpretation based on John that links Jesus to the Passover Lamb, and so transfers the physical quality of that sacrifice being without blemish into the moral quality of Jesus being without sin. It is an object lesson in the inseparability of tradition and reading.

There is not a straightforward doctrine of original sin in Scripture, at least not one which looks like Augustine’s, and which is presupposed here. (We are back, again, to some of the problems I noticed in dealing with the article on Original Sin which began this section). For Paul, who is intriguingly ignored in this article, human sinfulness seems to be primarily (not exclusively) being under the domination of a power which frustrates our desires and actions, as well as God’s calling to obedience. That power is perceived as having particular dominion in the “flesh” a term which characterizes non-eschatological this-worldly existence. It is doubtful whether Paul, or any of the NT writers, conceived of some kind of hereditary sinful nature in the way that Augustine does, although it is certainly possible to see how easily some texts led to Augustine’s interpretation, once that sinful nature had been deduced (partially from infant baptism). In the NT Christ’s sinlessness essentially means that he did not sin, and does not ask or answer questions about a sinful or sinless nature.

For people who, however loosely, conceive of themselves as children of the Reformation, that should stimulate possibilities of rethinking the question. If one takes Gregory Nazianzus’ maxim seriously: “What he did not assume, he did not heal” then we must (to speak in terms of the biblical narrative) ask whether Jesus took human nature as it was after the Fall, flesh under the dominion of sin (in Pauline terms) in order to live out the life of God in human flesh with,as it were, one hand tied behind his back. That does, of course, raise considerable problems with some expressions of  traditional doctrine, mainly in its Western Catholic (post-Augustinian) form, as reflected in this article. It also suggest that this is, and needs to be the real bone of contention in disputing the doctrine of the Immaculate Conception, or at least its interpretation. Jesus does not need insulating from real human nature, and the Blessed Virgin does not need to stand as a genetic barrier between sinners and their Saviour.

John Hobbins has puzzled me. (Perhaps it’s only because I’m aware that I shall shortly come to the article on predestination in my series that I noticed this.) But he professes to be a TULIP, which for those of you who need reminding – and half the time I do – stands for:

• Total depravity
• Unconditional election
• Limited atonement
• Irresistible grace
• Perseverance of the saints

These have always had some fairly clear doctrinal definitions in the Calvinist tradition, which have provided a base for controversial engagement with and by those in other traditions, particularly over the seriously un-Christian idea of limited atonement. But people knew what was meant, at least until John came along to redefine everything:

Total hereditary depravity is no match for God’s grace. He shall overcome.
Unconditional election is the chief and most glorious expression of God’s unconditional love.
Limited atonement is a reality faced today. The consequences of sin are still born in part by sin’s perpetrators and victims. The time is coming, and is almost here, when the Lamb’s victory over sin will be universal.
Irresistible Grace means that God’s saving purpose cannot be thwarted by human disobedience and incredulity.
Perseverance of the saints: God’s grace guarantees it. Relapse into sin is terribly destructive, but cannot separate us from the love of God.

Now I think John’s ideas are broadly right here, except that this is not what anyone means by TULIP — except John. In fact it is pretty much a full-blown repudiation of five-point Calvinism. So why try to give it the same name? I also feel like this about Chris Tilling’s attempts to save the word “inerrancy” for intelligent users, on which I have previously commented. John would presumably agree with Chris.

Whether for good or ill words like “inerrancy” and phrases like “limited atonement” have become irretrievably associated with views that are profoundly unbiblical and deserve only to be repudiated. Lone voices redefining them to mean their opposites will not rescue them. Quite frankly, this is just the Humpty-Dumpty school of theological definition, and I can’t see the point of it..

I posted yesterday on the bizarre silencing of Richard Colling for actually trying to teach science in a science class. It’s apparently not biblical. Over at Northstate Science Christopher O’Brien has the text of an email he’s received from Dr Colling (you need to scroll down a bit for it).

This is the key quote:

I truly feel that I can empathize with Galileo of 1633 when the Catholic church placed restrictions on him. I suppose it was inevitable that it would someday come to this: The battle fought against the scientifically naive religious authority and won by Galileo (albeit it took 400 years for vindication) was in the physical sciences. (The earth is NOT the center of the universe.) In contrast, regarding the emancipation of evolution (biological sciences) from the self-appointed religious authorities has not yet occurred in the United States. Perhaps it is time.
I believe that it is a matter of when, not if, the evolutionary paradigm WILL be integrated into the evangelical Christian theology. If not, the Christian faith will be relegated to cultural obsolescence. With the genetic data derived from the human genome project and other sources, the evolutionary connectedness of life on earth can no longer be denied. Therefore to build the foundation of the Christian faith on opposition to evolution is not only silly, it is suicide for the long-term viability and credibility of the faith.