Miniblog #71: The Bible is “Man-Made” « Musings of a Hardlining Moderate.
This shopr post is worth reading, I suggest.
Here is my comment to it:
Hi, Carson,
I see that you did it again, stirring up a very helpful discussion.
I was away on a Celtic Trail (more about it soon on my blog) and I have decided to take a virtual fast. So, I left my laptop home, doing only the absolutely essential on my iPhone. But I am back now and ready to go.
Thanks for this much needed post. I think the problem with much conservative bibliology consists in its Docetic tendencies, which tends to reduce the biblical text to a flat, black and white reality. If I am right in my analysis, then conservatives need to be preached to about the human nature of scripture, while liberals need to recover the idea of its divine nature.
The is, I think, precisely the opposite mistake made by extreme liberals, who emphasize so much the human dimension on scripture that its divine nature virtually disappears.
If I am right in my analysis, then conservatives need to be preached to about the human nature of scripture, while liberals need to recover the idea of its divine nature.
Nevertheless, as my son pointed out to me in a discussion the other day, we may also err by separating too much the two dimensions, since the divine, most often (with rare exceptions, as you have pointed out) is manifested and works through the human. Thus, the ‘only man-made’ or ‘only God-made’ does not make much sense to me. Surely, as I have pointed out to my son, we may also err by completely mingling the two natures. This is where the four Calcedonian qualifications may be of help.
One more issue that I would like to underline is that, as a high church Anglican, I feel very uncomfortable with the definition of Tradition as being ‘man-made’. I have learned a lot from the Orthodox on this matter. For them, Tradition’ is not merely a set of documents, but, rather, ‘the manifestation of the Spirit in the life of the Church, throughout history’. I understand that this definition deprives the typical evangelical of the most precious instrument with which they measure the degree of divine vs. human inspiration in Scripture and Tradition, but that is precisely why I like it.
There is, surely, much more to be said, but I will stop here, as much otther work awaits for me to be done.
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