TeSelle on Achtemeier

Gene TeSelle comments on Mark Achtemeier's support for the Confessing Church Movement

On April 3, soon after the publication of a statement by Mark Achtemeier praising the "Confessing Church Movement" currently being urged upon all PC(USA) congregations by the Presbyterian Lay Committee, Gene TeSelle sent two comments. TeSelle is former president of the Witherspoon Society, and has recently retired as a professor of historical theology and Vanderbilt Divinity School.

[4-7-01]

I notice that Mark Achtemeier's applauding of the Confessing Church Movement on the Layman web page has an interesting statement:

"In a situation such as ours, where the larger church seems to lack an authoritative teaching office that can effectively uphold and defend its identification with this faith of the church catholic, such a confessing movement holds out the promise of a continuing, faithful witness to the Gospel among Presbyterians."

The Reformed tradition has not thought much of the traditional Roman Catholic doctrine of a "teaching office," let alone a "Holy Office" which can discipline erring bishops and theologians. The General Assembly in recent years has rejected proposals for a Presbyterian equivalent.

Our only teaching office is that exercised by ministers of Word and sacrament as they try to preach week by week in fidelity to the Word of God, guided by the confessions of the church, but in full recognition that these are confessions, not creeds or dogmas.

If the "confessing movement" is to be seen as the Presbyterian equivalent of the Roman Catholic teaching office, then this is worth knowing, so that we can judge it accordingly. It is one thing to defend infallible dogmas. It is quite another thing to proclaim the gospel of justification so that it will both challenge and comfort in appropriate and saving ways.

How are we to approach the church's doctrines?

I have done a fair amount of work on Augustine's On the Trinity, which stretches to fifteen books and took twenty years to write. It is an attempt to go beyond the mere words of Scripture, and beyond any existing creeds, to a more comprehensive and explicit "understanding" of what is believed. There are many passages in which he attempts to formulate the doctrine of the Trinity in a more precise way.

Some of them have even found their way into the so-called Athanasian Creed, whose opening words are, "Whoever desires to be saved must above all hold the Catholic faith." It does not come from Athanasius; it was formulated around 525 in southern Gaul, perhaps by Caesarius of Arles or those associated with him. In any case it came to be a standard of orthodoxy, a far more definitive formulation than either the old baptismal creeds or the Nicene Creed. Some of its language clearly comes from Augustine, as when it says,

Thus the Father is God, the Son God, the Holy Spirit God; and yet there are not three Gods, but there is one God. Thus the Father is Lord, the Son Lord, the Holy Spirit Lord; and yet there are not three Lords, but there is one Lord.

These driving affirmations have an air of dogmatic exactitude about them, and through the centuries they have evoked the thrill of discovery in some, and have caused others to turn away with disgust. When Augustine uttered them he thought that he was gaining a degree of understanding that went beyond mere belief on the basis of authority.

Augustine did not suppose, however, that he was formulating statements that could be a substitute for growth in faith and understanding. He still called for an ongoing process of personal initiation. In the later books of On the Trinity, therefore, he keeps relativizing and de-stabilizing his own discoveries. While he affirms that faith is the beginning of certitude, he also reminds himself that knowledge cannot be complete until God is seen face to face. He constantly corrects the language of Scripture and the creeds: God is not gendered; if the Holy Spirit proceeds from the Father and the Son this does not mean that the Spirit is the "grandson" of the Father; and the Spirit is not the "father" of Jesus. Religious language remains metaphorical, constantly demanding further insight. Therefore it is better to keep on seeking than to presume that one has found; better yet, God is to be sought even after being found, and when God is found more sweetly, God must continue to be sought all the more eagerly (IX,i,1; XV,ii,2).

It was in Augustine's spirit, therefore, that F.D. Maurice reinterpreted the bold first line of the Athanasian Creed to mean quite simply "that eternal life is the knowledge of God, and that eternal death is Atheism, the being without him." Such a perspective may actually be more faithful to the original meaning of the creed, for it was first used in baptism and soon found additional use as a convenient summary of the "apostolic proclamation," the good news that goes to all the nations. It functioned as a kind of "common denominator" among the many apostolic churches in an era when there was diversity and conflict over many points. In the next generation, Origen understood the creed in the same way, as a summary of the basics of the apostolic proclamation which left many items open, inviting further, more diligent inquiry.

This is the same Augustine who, even in the midst of defending the doctrine of predestination, urged a shift from theoretical statements to practical ones, using direct address in "second person" so that the language of predestination will be employed in a hopeful way - not saying "Some will not make it" but calling upon people to respond to the call of prevenient grace.

That's how doctrine is best approached, because that's how doctrine first came into existence!