Larry Dixon is a graduate of Emmaus Bible College and is Professor of Church History and Theology at Columbia Biblical Seminary and School of Missions in Columbia, South Carolina. He attends Woodland Hills Community Church in Columbia. This is chapter two in a series of articles entitled Back to the Basics: A Fairly Serious Survey of the Fundamentals of the Faith.
Introduction
- “The danger [students] have been taught to fear from absolutism is not error but intolerance…. Openness is the great insight of our times. The true believer is the real danger…. The point is not to correct the mistakes and really be right; rather it is not to think you are right at all…. The purpose of their education is not to make them scholars but to provide them with a moral virtue—openness.” Allan Bloom The Closing of the American Mind
- “Apart from blunt truth, our lives sink decadently amid the perfume of hints and suggestions.” Anonymous
- “People are driven from the Church not so much by stern truth that makes them uneasy as by weak nothings that make them contemptuous.” George Buttrick
- “God only knows—God has His plan—The information’s unavailable to mortal man.” Paul Simon
The difficulty with many Christians is that their answers would not be much different than that man’s. They are not sure what they believe, but they know that whatever their pastor or their church or their own experience tells them must be right.
Sources of Doctrine
As you are watching a football game on television on a Sunday afternoon, a commercial comes on. The attractive young woman looks into the camera and says, “The Bible records God’s love for us in Jesus Christ.” Sounds like a Christian pitch, you think to yourself. The young woman continues, “But there is another testimony about Jesus Christ which has greatly helped me in living in this troubled world.” Another testimony? you ask yourself. “And you can have your own free copy of this important—and inspired—record of the visit of Jesus to North America. For your complimentary copy of The Book of Mormon, call 1–800-….”
Should you order a copy? Why or why not?
This commercial draws our attention to the issue of where one derives his doctrinal beliefs. This is perhaps the most fundamental preliminary question of the Christian faith. What is to be our primary source of doctrine? Generally, people use one of four sources for what they believe.
Ecclesiastical Authority
Some receive their doctrine primarily from an ecclesiastical authority. That ecclesiastical authority might take the form of a long-standing religious tradition, a set of creeds or confessions, or simply the position that says, “This is what my pastor preaches, and so this is what I believe!”
Although there are advantages to standing in a doctrinal tradition, the immediate disadvantage might be the possibility that the Christian does not have to think for himself. The credit (or blame) for the truth (or error) of what he believes rests on the corporate shoulders of the “authority” rather than on the individual himself.
But the biblical emphasis is to take responsibility for one’s own beliefs, to think for oneself, to examine and determine for oneself what things are worthy of being embraced and what things ought to be discarded.
Evangelical Christianity has been accused of being too individualistic, and we will see some truth to this charge as we consider the doctrine of the church in Chapter Nine. But the Bible repeatedly challenges the individual to make his own decisions about what he believes. This challenge is shown in Isaiah’s invitation on behalf of the Lord to “come, let us reason together, says the Lord” (Isaiah 1:18), in Joshua’s declaration to “choose for yourselves this day whom you will serve…. But as for me and my household, we will serve the Lord” (Joshua 24:15), in the Apostle Paul’s admonition regarding “whatever is true, whatever is noble, whatever is right, whatever is pure, whatever is lovely, whatever is admirable—think on such things” (Philippians 4:8), as well as in Paul’s command to “test all things—hold fast to that which is good” (1 Thessalonians 5:21). Of course, Jesus challenged His disciples with the question “Who do you say that I am?” (Matthew 16:15), indicating that He expected them to draw their own conclusion as to His identity, based on the evidence they had seen.
We are to accept responsibility for our own sin, to personally come to the Savior for forgiveness and to the Teacher for truth. Nothing should cause us to forsake our duty of believing what is true and rejecting what is false. That sense of personal accountability is thoroughly biblical and must not be sacrificed for any reason. This is not the same as arguing for personal autonomy, a situation or lifestyle in which the orientation is wholly self-directed, with no ear for an outside authority.
The most persuasive example of this individual duty of determining what one ought to believe is found in Acts 17:11. There we read of Paul’s preaching in the synagogue in Berea. If I had been there, I would have copied down his sermon verbatim, and believed every word which he spoke. However, we read the following about the Berean believers:
Now the Bereans were of more noble character than the Thessalonians, for they received the message with great eagerness and examined the Scriptures every day to see if what Paul said was true.
Please notice that the Bereans are commended by Dr. Luke for taking responsibility in testing the things being said by Paul. Their nobility was specifically in the fact that they eagerly examined the Scriptures to confirm what Paul was teaching. Enthusiasm and biblical examination are not mutually exclusive terms! An eagerness to hear the word of God does not presuppose a gullibility to accept all that is proclaimed, even if the teacher is the esteemed Apostle Paul!
I come from the great state of North Carolina, a state which has given the world, through the adventures of the Wright brothers, flying, Michael Jordan (separate subjects), Pepsi-Cola, and evangelist Dr. Billy Graham. Imagine with me if you will that Billy Graham dropped in on your mid-week prayer meeting. Don’t you think that your church would eagerly surrender its pulpit to Dr. Graham if the evangelist would be willing to address your congregation? I imagine that any of us there would take extensive notes of Dr. Graham’s challenge, probably making certain the volunteer sound man would tape the message, and most of us would sit in awe of Dr. Graham’s presence. Some would hustle home to get their cameras so that they could pose with the evangelist for a picture (perhaps missing the devotional altogether).
Would there be any Christians in the congregation who would search the Scriptures to see if what Dr. Graham was preaching was biblical? I have no doctrinal problems with the ministry of the world-famous evangelist, but is it not a symptom of our celebrity-obsessed society that few if any Christians would expend the effort to biblically evaluate what they were hearing, even from such a godly man?
Is it not true that we let the experts do our thinking for us? Our society seems to reject any existence of truth, yet Christians seem inclined to believe anyone who says he has truth. But the biblical position is to test those who claim to have truth by the clear teachings of Scripture. And if that included the Apostle Paul in the First Century, it certainly ought to include teachers like Graham, Swindoll, Dobson, and Dixon (!) in the Twentieth Century.
Those whose doctrinal beliefs are informed only by their creeds, confessions, and pronouncements from the pulpit may not necessarily believe the wrong things, but their beliefs are secondhand. Firsthand formulations of one’s faith come about only as one personally interacts with Scripture, rather than simply be content with repeating what one has been told.
Personal Experience
The second source used by individuals for doctrine is their own experience. Some experience, of course, is worthy of informing us as to what is true. C. S. Lewis has a potent comment concerning the denial of personal experience by those who reject the gospel. He writes:
If the end of the world appeared in all the literal trappings of the Apocalypse, if the modern materialist saw with his own eyes the heavens rolled up and the great white throne appearing, if he had the sensation of being himself hurled into the Lake of Fire, he would continue forever, in that lake itself, to regard his experience as an illusion and to find the explanation of it in psycho-analysis, or cerebral pathology. [2]There will be people, even in hell, who will not trust their own experience to give them truth!
Obviously, experience can be either overrated or underrated. I recently heard about a Pentecostal minister who had written in the flyleaf of his Bible the words, “I don’t care what the Bible says—I’ve had an experience!” This is not meant to pick on Pentecostals. I believe a lot of non-Pentecostals live the same way—they just haven’t written that guiding principle in the flyleaf of their Bibles.
Our experiences are only as good as their agreement with the written Word of God. We do not gain truth from our experiences; we gain experience from truth. Truth is never derived from experience; truth is derived from truth.
As you are probably aware, there are a variety of schools of counseling available today. One can consult with Freudian psychiatrists, Reality Therapy counselors, Nouthetic therapists, and Rogerian psychoanalysts, as well as a variety of other approaches. Let’s assume someone you know has a serious problem and happens to wind up in the office of a Rogerian psychoanalyst. The conversation might go something like this:
“So, Mr. Brown, what seems to be the trouble?”
“Well, Doc. I’ve been having this overwhelming desire to flush my cat down the toilet. What should I do, Doc?”
“So you’ve been having this desire to flush your cat down the toilet, Mr. Brown? What do you think you should do?
“I don’t know, Doc. Can you help me?”
“Do you think I can help you, Mr. Brown? Why do you think I can help you?”Rogerian psychology comes from the assumption that patients possess within themselves the answers to their own questions. So the primary task of the Rogerian counselor is to serve as a mirror to the counselee so he or she will arrive at his or her own answer without an outside authority dispensing truth.
Lest you think I’m making this up, take a look at the following statement from Carl Rogers himself:
Experience is, for me, the highest authority…. No other person’s ideas, and none of my own ideas, are as authoritative as my experience. It is to experience that I must return again and again, to discover a closer approximation to truth as it is in the process of becoming in me. Neither the Bible nor the prophets,…neither the revelations of God nor man—can take precedence over my own direct experience. [3]It seems to me that many Christians are actually quite Rogerian in their approach to life. The final grid by which they judge life is their own experience. However, experiences must always be interpreted, and only the Word of God provides a sufficient grid by which to interpret our experiences.
Is it too strong to say that many Christians are guilty of being what we might call “experience junkies”? That is, they run from one Bible conference to the next, listening to audio messages from this preacher or that one, but expend precious little effort in digging out of the Bible for themselves what is really there. And if something in the Bible seems to run counter to their experience, so much the worse for the Bible!
While I was a short-term missionary in Germany, I talked with one German fellow who told me he was going to marry a non-Christian young lady. I carefully spoke to him about the biblical injunction prohibiting a believer from marrying an unbeliever (2 Cor. 6:12). Can you guess what his response to me was? “I’m sorry you feel that way, Larry. I’m going to marry her anyway; I believe the Lord is leading me to marry her!” And he did.
How do we know when the Lord is “leading” us? Upon what basis can we evaluate our own (or another’s) experience? The only solid basis for evaluating experience is the teaching of Scripture. Whether we listen to the Bible is another issue. A.W. Tozer reminds us:
Whatever keeps me from my Bible is my enemy, however harmless it may appear to be. Whatever engages my attention when I should be meditating on God and things eternal does injury to my soul. Let the cares of life crowd out the Scriptures from my mind and I have suffered loss where I can least afford it. Let me accept anything else instead of the Scriptures and I have been cheated and robbed to my eternal confusion. [4]Reason
A third source used by many to derive their beliefs is that of reason. Some take the position that what they cannot understand, what they are not able to grasp intellectually, they will neither believe nor embrace. When Christians object to such an unqualified use of human reason to determine faith, they are often caricatured as anti-intellectual. But the issue is not the engagement of the mind in doctrinal matters, but rather the autonomy of the human intellect as the final source for what is worthy of faith.
When you really think about it, Christianity teaches some fairly radical ideas, ideas sufficient to keep Robert Stack and the Unexplained Mysteries people supplied with shows for years. We Christians believe that God spoke the universe into existence, that the universe was originally good, and that that goodness was forfeited in a genuine garden through a real first family’s rebellion. We believe that the God who exists is triune, one God eternally existent as Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, equal in power and glory. We believe that the Second Person of that Trinity became fully human, without becoming sinful and without giving up His divinity, so that He might redeem fallen mankind. We believe that the personal sacrifice of Jesus on the cross satisfies God’s holy demands and brings pardon to those who believe the gospel message. We believe that every Christian is indwelt by the Third member of the Trinity, the Holy Spirit, who empowers the Christian to live a God-honoring life. We believe that Jesus Christ not only rose bodily from the dead after His crucifixion, but will return to the earth in the future to take His bride, the Church, to heaven. We believe there is a personal, supernatural enemy of the Christian called Satan who does everything he can to thwart God’s good purposes for believers and seeks to deceive the world. These and many other things we Christians believe.
Stand back for a minute, Christian. Don’t some of those beliefs sound fantastic? Anti-intellectual? On the level of people who say they have either seen a UFO or been abducted by aliens? Then why do we believe these things?
The answer is that our doctrines are not to be determined finally by what our minds can conceive or our brains can comprehend. It is reasonable that there would be in biblical religion concepts which transcend our finite reason. The oft-repeated dictum, “The first duty of a man is to think for himself,” if taken as an absolute, leads to intellectual idolatry and a rebellious rationalism. We are not to worship our thoughts, but the God who gives us the ability to think.
There is no doubt that many Christians fail to think through their Christian faith, acting as if somehow God had performed a spiritual lobotomy on them at conversion! I’m reminded of a bumper sticker mentioned by Paul Harvey which read, “They may send me to college, but they cannot make me think!” That Christians are too often intellectually lazy is beyond dispute. We have all the resources we need from God to love Him with our minds (Matthew 22:37).
But that particular issue for the Christian is a different problem than the idea that one should believe only that which makes sense to the human intellect. While biblical Christianity is not irrational, it may be argued that it is meta-rational (that is, its concepts go beyond human understanding). To assume that man is the measure of all things and that his mind provides a thoroughly reliable guide to the most important questions in life is an assumption which ignores the biblical proposition that all of man’s personality has been tainted by sin. Man’s fall away from God also brought his mind under the curse of sin.
The truth is that even the most rationalistic atheist exercises faith in others every day. He bites into his Big Mac without any investigation of the teenager who cooked it; he drinks the water in a restaurant without having the FBI check the possible criminal record of the waiter who poured the water for him; and, he steps onto elevators without blinking an eye!
I’m reminded of a newspaper which had a column called “The Answer Man.” In one edition a reader asked, “How does an elevator work?” The Answer Man responded: “An elevator is essentially a small room dangling over a very deep shaft, held up by thin cables that are maintained by building employees who have tremendous trouble just keeping the toilets working.” The point? Every person exercises faith in machines, people, and circumstances. No one is capable of personally examining all experiences in life with intellectual thoroughness. As the “great theologian” Bob Dylan puts it, “You gotta’ trust somebody.”
But we need to know that the somebody we trust has our best interests at heart, that there is Someone outside ourselves who gives us reliable information about both the here and the here-after. As we will see, this is precisely the reason that Christians acknowledge the Bible as God’s final revelation of His truth to finite humanity. The Bible provides the truth which stands outside ourselves, which has been carefully communicated by a God who cares about our receiving the benefits of that truth, and which rescues us from the cul-de-sac of our own twisted thinking.
Supernatural Revelation
The fourth source used by individuals for their own doctrine is that of supernatural revelation. By this expression we mean the acts and words by which God the Creator communicates His will for His creation. Although there are many examples of His doing that directly, Christianity is committed to the position that He has done that finally and ultimately in His written Word, the Bible.
The Reformers such as John Calvin and Martin Luther fought for the principles of sola gratia, sola fide, sola scriptura. This triple declaration of “only grace” (sola gratia), “only faith” (sola fide), and “only Scripture” (sola scriptura) needs to be revisited today by contemporary Christendom.
The great evangelist John Wesley expressed his commitment to the written Word of God when he said:
I want to know one thing, the way to heaven…. God himself has condescended to teach the way…. He hath written it down in a book. Oh, give me that book! At any price give me the book of God!We need to adopt Wesley’s attitude towards the Scriptures, and study the Bible for ourselves.
I recently watched an episode of the “spiritual giant” Oprah Winfrey. Her guests included several people who had near-death experiences and believed that they had gone to heaven and had personal interviews with God or with angels. One of the guests—there is no way to say this charitably—was clearly addicted to angels. She was convinced that she had communicated on numerous occasions with the heavenly creatures—and wanted to teach us to do the same. When a member of the audience asked her about Jesus, she angrily rejected any notion of Jesus Christ being the only way to God and challenged all the viewers to seek the angel-guide within themselves. She probably had an encounter with an angel—a fallen one, otherwise known as a demon (Galatians 1:8)! Oprah encouraged her guest, railing indignantly against the idea that Jesus is the only Savior and that her guests might have been duped by demons.
In our sometimes supernatural-obsessed society, where every television talk show seems to showcase people who have conversed with angels, Martin Luther’s elevation of the Bible is refreshing:
I have made a covenant with God that he sends me neither visions, dreams, nor even angels. I am well satisfied with the gift of the Holy Scriptures which give me abundant instruction and all that I need to know both for this life and for that which is to come.Christians are to be “people of the Book.” They are to be committed to reading, studying, discussing, debating, and sharing what they learn from the sixty-six books comprising the Old and New Testaments. But what does one see when one looks around on a Sunday morning at Third Baptist or Holy Mackerel Lutheran? Few Christians bring their Bibles to church; even fewer have them open to follow the preacher. And a minority of preachers, it seems, do all that they can to encourage the congregation to use their Bibles, either in anticipation of the sermon or during its presentation. We are in the fast lane to biblical illiteracy in the midst of a Christian sub-culture which has produced a Bible for everyone: The Woman’s Bible, The Bible for Teens, The Scriptures for the Athletically-Challenged, God’s Word for the Upwardly-Mobile, The Down-Home Bible for the Down-and-Outer, etc. I can identify with C. S. Lewis’ puzzlement when he said, “Strange—The more the Bible is translated the less it is read.”
A great defender of the faith, E.J. Carnell, once said:
Whether we happen to like it or not, we are closed up to the teaching of the Bible for our information about all doctrines in the Christian faith, and this includes the doctrine of the Bible’s view of itself.What is the Bible’s view of itself? Christians believe that the Bible affirms its own inspiration (2 Timothy 3:14–17), declares its own infallibility (John 17:17), and sets forth its own authority (2 Peter 3:15–16). Of course, other “holy” books make similar claims, but the Bible’s declarations are substantiated by the testimony of the incarnate Son of God.
God has finally and ultimately communicated Himself to His creation through the Scriptures. How fortunate we are as Christians not to be in the place of the character in Tennessee Williams’ play “Sweet Bird of Youth” who declares:
I believe that the long silence of God, the absolute speechlessness of Him, is a long, long and awful thing that the whole world is lost because of; I think it’s yet to be broken to any man living or yet lived on earth, no exceptions. [5]God is neither mute nor silent. He has communicated His mind and will to us in His Word, the Scriptures, and we are to give ourselves to their diligent study. [6]
Notes
- As we learned in our first article in this series (“Developing a Distaste for Doctrine,” The Emmaus Journal 7 [Winter 1998]: 241-253), various reasons are given by Christians for not delving into “theology” and doctrinal issues. Some fail to see the practical relevance of doctrine, many are put off by the technical language of theology (what I’ve called “Theologese”), and not a few are concerned that doctrine is divisive and counter-productive to believers’ loving one another. I attempted to deal with those three objections. We now move to consider what should be our final authority for what we believe.
- C. S. Lewis, “Miracles,” in God in the Dock: Essays on Theology and Ethics (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1970), 25.
- Carl Rogers, quoted in Foundations of Evangelical Theology, John Jefferson Davis (Grand Rapids: Baker, 1984), 159.
- A.W. Tozer, That Incredible Christian, quoted in Gems from Tozer (Weston-super-Mare, London: Send the Light Trust, 1969), 39.
- Tennessee Williams’ play, Sweet Bird of Youth, in Hunter Beckelhymer’s Questions God Asks (New York: Abingdon Press, 1961), 99.
- The next article will deal with the question, “What do those Scriptures teach us about Jesus Christ, the Son of God?”
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