Shape and Place of Doctrine in Today\'s

¶ … Shape and Place of Doctrine in Today's World

A religion is a way of life. The more religious one considers oneself, the more that one has made a commitment to become closer to God, and to declare oneself a member of a specific community. Today's churches are the result of centuries of development. Bastions of tradition, most creeds hearken back to an earlier day. Their ways and general beliefs were largely fixed in another time and place, one that was often quite different from the world in which we now live. Christianity is only one of many world religions whose origin goes back to Ancient Times. Indeed, there are faiths still practiced today the origins of which pre-date Christianity by some considerable period of time. The earliest Hindu Scriptures were being recited even as the Pharaohs of Egypt thought themselves the greatest rulers in the world. Judaism, the faith that is most directly ancestral to Christianity, traces its history back nearly as far. Ancient Egypt was the setting of many a Biblical episode. Other forms of worship go far back. Zoroastrianism extended its influence over much of the Middle East and the Roman Empire. Mithraism is a direct descendent, and Manichaeanism and Gnosticism were both affected to a greater or lesser extent. The home of Christianity was a melting pot. Ancient Palestine was traversed by the followers of almost every Western religion. Worshippers of Isis and Mazda, Aphrodite and Mithra, and Baal and Osiris communicated with one another, and influenced one another. The Christianity that began as an outgrowth of Judaism was also a product of all of these influences. And, if you were a True Believer -- it was taught and preached by the Son of God. The Christianity that developed in those distant days was a product of its time.

In a similar fashion, the Lutheran Church developed out of Roman Catholicism in the Sixteenth Century. The issues and concerns of that age shaped the new church. For millions of people the Lutheran Creed offered answers to existing problems. It provided a blueprint for a an agrarian, pre-industrial lifestyle, a plan that would remain applicable so long as conditions remained similar. But conditions were destined to change ... And to change dramatically. First came industrialization, and the end of the traditional rural way of life. Next -- modern technology, high speed transportation and communication. Suddenly the vast world in which Lutheranism had been born was no longer so vast. In an instant, individuals from different parts of the globe could speak to each, and listen to each other. Radio and television brought far-away places -- and ideas -- into every home. The tried-and-true premises of the Old Faith were now in direct competition with alien ways of thought, and ways of living. Whether the result of scientific developments, or cross-cultural fertilization, it was becoming increasingly difficult for many religious people to continue to blindly accept, on simple faith, what they had been taught. To a much greater extent than at the time of Martin Luther, Christians of all stripes are presented with a range of information that potentially challenges traditional ideas and beliefs. For the modern person who knows of Buddhism, Taoism, and many other "alien" religions, the problems of doctrine are immense. As well, science has explained many things that, in the past, could only be explained by way of religion. Such rational arguments present a powerful challenge to the teachings of any faith. Take science, and knowledge of the world together, and you have a potent mixture. The well-educated Lutheran of today may be filled with new questions that his Church can simply not answer.

Popular belief, or "conventional wisdom," has long held the idea that blind religious faith -- the kind that ignores obvious scientific explanations of natural phenomena -- is necessarily an example of gross ignorance and irrationality. But as modern "scientific" researchers are beginning to discover, such a conclusion is simplistic at best. The effect of new studies

... Has been to open up a new range of historiographical questions, questions that lay aside presuppositions about the assumed cognitive superiority of scientific knowledge, or the triumph of western scientific rationality over other thought forms, or the victory of scientists over theologians in the struggle for cultural authority.

The origins of Protestantism lie in the battle between different "truths." Even before science had made such strides that traditional, religious explanations of the physical world had begun to be overturned, there existed a battle between the reasoned truth as Lutherans and other Protestants saw it, and the irrational, or perverted "truths" of the Roman Catholic Church. Men like Rene Descartes sought to re-join science and religion in a way that would be acceptable to all. Even if certain dogmatic ideas could not be proved to the satisfaction of everyone, all churches could at least take confidence in the existence of an absolute truth. "Descartes sought to provide foundations for knowledge that were absolutely certain, and thus to stem the tide of doubt that prevailed in his time."

The carefully reasoned system of inquiry that Descartes employed was especially appealing to Protestants. So long as an absolute truth actually existed, Lutherans and Calvinists could find solace in the fact that a methodical study of the Holy Bible, and other "authoritative" religious texts, would provide the needed answers. "The Church, as a source for absolute truth claims, came to be substituted, through Luther and other reformers, by the authority of individual conscience and appeal to the Bible."

The kind of religion that Martin Luther had preached was an apparently rational creed. Taking into account the level of scientific knowledge that existed in his day -- and for a considerable time afterwards -- it seemed fully possible to understand the cosmos in rational terms. Martin Luther's doctrine made sense because one could follow it logically to the same conclusions that Luther himself had reached. Any thinking person could reproduce these "truths" in the same manner as a scientist reproduced the experiment of a colleague. Follow the logical method, use the same materials, and you will obtain the same end result. The raw material of Lutheranism is the Bible. To a much greater degree than in the case of the Roman Church, all Protestant denominations tried to establish the truth of their creed by resorting to the Bible. As long as one took the Bible to be the ultimate authority, one could always argue from a point of strength. What Luther, and Calvin, and John Knox did not foresee, however, was the gradual substitution of scientific discovery for Holy Writ. In the Sixteenth Century science was not yet advanced enough to be anywhere close to offering a complete explanation of the natural world. Much that men and women believed was still based upon conjecture. One's suppositions were drawn rationally from the entire body of human knowledge as it then existed. All that was beyond the direct ken of science was to be found in the Holy Books. The absolute truth may not have been easy to find, and certainly, judging from the significant argument between Lutherans, Calvinists, Presbyterians, Catholics, and so on, there could be many widely-varying interpretations of the material available for analysis. Still the material to be analyzed was fixed. Everyone was working from the same starting point, and using the identical equipment.

Unfortunately for the believers in the possibility of finding absolute truth in the Bible, the century after the Reformation turned out to be an age of considerable progress, and new discoveries in the scientific community. By the end of the Eighteenth Century Enlightenment, the rational investigators who called themselves "scientists" had uncovered many disturbing facts. These scientific facts were in direct conflict with Holy Writ. The Bible it seemed was not infallible. And as all notions of truth and order were consistently traced back to a now fallible Bible, what of all the values upon which human society is based?

Conscience, in short, demands that our minds and hearts attend to their built-in hunger for the true and the good. It prods them along in their search for it -- and then insists they embrace what they believe they have found. Conscience, of course, is neither omniscient nor infallible. Regardless, it must be obeyed if we are to keep our integrity. After all, conscience takes the truth, as we understand it, and applies it to concrete circumstances to judge what is good. To refuse to follow its judgment (even when it turns out to have been mistaken) is to consciously reject what we believe to be true and turn our back on what we believe to be good, which violates our nature, if nothing else.

But if the Bible was wrong, what did that say about an infallible Deity? Who now would be the keeper of the human conscience?

In the Twenty-First Century, The Evangelical Lutheran Church in America makes many demands upon its followers. Adherents of the Church follow Martin Luther's example in giving pride of place to the Holy Bible. It is taken for granted that all church Doctrine is to be found somewhere in either the Old or the New Testament. "Seek and ye shall find" -- look long and hard enough, analyze every word and phrase, and apply all of your powers of reason, and you will see the Bible for what it is: a step-by-step instruction manual, the sacred play-book of the infallible Lutheran Church. Did I just say "infallible"? Infallible -- that sounds very Catholic. Wasn't it the aim of Martin Luther to lay to rest all of the fallacies of the Roman Catholic Church; all of the superstitions and dogmatic creeds of the old Universal Church? Nonetheless, the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America -- the ELCA that exists today in the Second Millennium -- is a creedal church. All Lutherans believe not only in the Bible, but also in the three great dogmatic creeds of the Early Church: the Apostles', the Nicene, and the Athanasian (ELCA Constitution 2.04). Creeds are dogma not doctrine. They have become part of Lutheran Doctrine, but they are dogmatic in the sense that they are based not on reason but on faith. There is no reason to believe any of these Creeds based on study of the Bible. The doctrines that they establish find authority only in tradition, and tradition alone. The belief that God and the Son of God are of the same substance, and that Jesus Christ, God's son, is also God Himself made manifest -- these are beliefs shared by almost all Christians. Yet they are found nowhere in the Bible. The same is true of the Trinity, that third member of the Christian Godhead. Where in Holy Writ is there specific, or implicit, mention of this fundamental concept? And if these basic ideas were left out of the Bible, what does that say about the completeness of that Most Holy Book? What about all the other apparent "errors" with which the Bible abounds?

The Biblical Account of Creation directly conflicts with the scientific evidence for Evolution. Many of the Bible's historical facts are incorrect -- many of them are accurate, but many of them are not. Reason and experience teach us many things about the world in which we live. The world that surrounds us molds our thoughts, and influences us in certain ways. The typical Twenty-First Century member of the ELCA has been educated in the rational tradition that has overwhelmingly controlled and shaped Western thought ever since the Enlightenment. He or she has absorbed enormous amounts of knowledge that derives from scientific discovery and invention. Being a member of the ELCA means living in a country that is home to many different faiths and traditions; a country where educational opportunities are rife, and where exposure to seemingly unrelated systems of thought is commonplace. Lutherans are taught that their religion is logical, but without faith how can they possibly arrive at the same conclusions that Martin Luther made nearly five hundred years ago? Emanuel Swedenborg was among the first to scientifically challenge tradition Lutheran Doctrine. A fine example of an Enlightenment scientist and mathematician, Swedenborg had a Vision of Jesus Christ in 1743.

That Vision combined with the Lutheran Church's emphasis on rational investigation, and his own very extensive education led him to a number of startling conclusions:

He denounces without stint the doctrine of justification by faith alone, as set forth in the current Lutheran teaching. God is in His essence Love and Wisdom .... God is a single person. The idea of an immanent Trinity is rejected. There was no Trinity before the creation. Jesus derived His body from Mary. That which is divine in Christ is the Father, the name of God after He has "assumed the human"; the divine in this connection with the human is the Son; the divine which proceeds from Him is the Holy Spirit. Thus the Trinity is in Christ. Christ was victor over the powers of hell. A substitutionary atonement is rejected. Christ is glorified, and, through Him, the divine man, we have the true idea of God and are conjoined by love to Him. A physical resurrection is discarded. At death the eyes are opened to the spiritual world in which we exist now. After death men live essentially as they lived here. At length they are drawn by their affinities to hell or to heaven. Angels are the spirits of departed human beings.

Swedenborg's "discoveries" could hardly be more radical. Nevertheless, they are arrived at rationally. All the Swedenborg expounded was based directly on his own observation and knowledge. Each premise follows clearly and logical from the one before, and is ultimately grounded in a discernable, and testable, reality. One can argue with Swedenborg's beliefs, but only if one disputes his logic, or his veracity. He claimed to have had a Vision of Jesus Christ. If indeed he had a Vision of Jesus Christ then all of his observations regarding that Vision are part of a fully logical train of thought. Of course, if one doubts the reality of Swedenborg's Vision, consigning to the realm of fantasy what he took to be real -- then one has room to maneuver. Without the "real-life" observations of which he spoke, he could not possibly have logically and rationally arrived at many of his conclusions.

Emanuel Swedenborg's Vision went a long way toward changing his views on Lutheran Doctrine. In the post-modern world of the New Millennium seeing is still believing. Knowledge is still knowledge. We make our conclusions based on what we know. A Vision represents first-hand knowledge of Divinity. Whether such a vision is a complete picture of the cosmological order depends precisely on how much we see. But as with Swedenborg, Visions come together with facts -- the facts of our education and experience. We live in a world that is not only more scientific than that in which most of Swedenborg's contemporaries lived, but one that is also far more diverse. The multiculturalism that so many educators praise is a powerful influence on most modern-day Americans' worldviews. Interacting with people who follow different traditions from our own makes us question the absolute truthfulness of our own tradition. One can be born and brought up a Lutheran -- descendent of a long line of Lutherans, but can have friends, or even relatives, who are followers of some other religious denomination or persuasion. Knowing different "facts" encourages the questioning of one's beliefs. A knowledge and study of disparate facts enables one to envision alternative explanations. Buddhists believe that each human soul is born many times, in many different physical bodies. There is a hierarchy of physical forms from least virtuous to most virtuous. The cycle of rebirths is a learning experience, and continues until at last one achieves perfect virtue, and perfect knowledge, such that one quite rationally escapes forever from the cycle of rebirths (what you don't know can hurt you!). This particular belief-system is very obviously at odds with traditional Lutheran teachings. Yet, Buddhism's most devout adherents are as convinced of the absolute truth of their beliefs as the most pious and learned Lutheran ministers are convinced of theirs.

Science, every bit as much as theology, rests upon faith. Science must appeal to some foundational assumptions regarding the nature of reality and our apprehension of it, assumptions which themselves cannot be proved within the scope of scientific reasoning. In its own disguised fashion, science is religious, mythical. "The activity of knowing, "writes Langdon Gilkey, "points beyond itself to a ground of ultimacy which its own forms of discourse cannot usefully thematize, and for which religious symbolization is alone adequate." Scientific reasoning depends upon the deeply held conviction -- the passion of the scientist -- that the world is rational and knowable and that truth is worth pursuing. "This is not 'faith' in the strictly religious and certainly not in the Christian sense," Gilkey observes, "But it is a commitment in the sense that it is a personal act of acceptance and affirmation of an ultimate in one's life."

The concept of the Trinity is closely related to the idea of Jesus Christ as the physical manifestation of the Logos, or Word of God. Both ideas involve the acceptance of a belief that God is capable of assuming many forms simultaneously. Both are premised on the idea that God takes these different forms in order to fulfill some ultimate purpose of His Creation. Both ideas cannot be proven with recourse to any specific set of facts or assumptions that occur in the Bible -- if you had not heard the idea before you might never think of it, no matter how many times you read the Bible, or how carefully you study it.

Monotheism expressed a higher plateau of self-awareness and integration of the individual personality than had the more chaotic and naive outlook of its polytheistic forerunners. This more modern, more "tightly wrapped" self-awareness is particularly evident in the foregoing "Word" passages. Essentials of what later came to be perceived as distinctive attributes of mind -- the light of awareness contrasting the darkness of unawareness, individual personality, imperishability, the equation of individual personality with name, that had made one's name a sacred mystery to primitive religious sensibility -- are epitomized by the "Word." All inchoate or latent things are hidden in their "Words" in this view. The tacit notion that the existence of a thing depends on, or is at least interdependent with, the existence of a personality to comprehend it, is also implicated.

Belief in the Logos is predicated on another and more profound assumption -- that in order for something to exist it must have a creator, and furthermore, that Creator must possess an intelligence. More difficult still for one of a non-Christian heritage would be the association of the Logos with the specific Person of Jesus Christ as the Son of God. Central to Lutheran Doctrine is the notion that the assumption of a human form by the Son was an inevitable facet of Creation -- in order for the Universe to be what it is, God had to have been born in the flesh as His Own Son. This is certainly a difficult concept to grasp, and one which, by no means, necessarily follows from Holy Writ.

One can easily analyze the influence and presence of Jesus Christ in a multitude of different fashions. Why, for example, to Jesus Christ have to be born on Earth in order for God to forgive the sins of humankind? Couldn't He have done that without "coming to life?" More complex still is the thought-process behind the concept of a Word needing to take physical form. If the Logos is the Word, and that is all, is that not the same as saying that the Logos is an idea, and not a physical entity? Nevertheless, the unparalleled complexity of the Christian Godhead can be seen as a sign of the strength and universality of the Deity: