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From: gary@sphinx.UChicago.UUCP (gary w buchholz)
Newsgroups: net.religion.christian
Subject: Wingate and Tinkham - Hunting Phantasma in the Christian Tradition
Message-ID: <1153@sphinx.UChicago.UUCP>
Date: Mon, 7-Oct-85 00:44:57 EDT
Article-I.D.: sphinx.1153
Posted: Mon Oct  7 00:44:57 1985
Date-Received: Wed, 2-Oct-85 06:31:39 EDT
Organization: U. Chicago - Computation Center
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  I've been following these remarks by Wingate and Tinkham on "correct
doctrine" and thought I might make some comment.
  The "problem" becomes a problem in at least two ways.  1) Religious
pluralism.  2) Theological reflection on recent historiography.

  Wingate takes up the former and *asserts* the Anglican position.
Tinkham points out the latter but does not follow out the implications
of what he says.

  It is interesting that Wingate states the 1886 Anglican "confession"
implying that this may be valid in the contemporary context.  By doing
this he predates the entire "german revolution" in philosophy of history
and critical biblical scholarship that "makes" the problem that Tinkham
tries to address (ie historical relativism).

  Historical relativism is a favorite topic of discussion treated in NT
"Introductions" used at the seminary and divinity schools.  A short
survey is given below.

  E.Best in Scripture, Tradition and the Canon of the New Testament
wants to view the creeds, doctrines and dogmas of the church (as well
as canon) as the "freezing of tradition in particular contexts" which
serve "as an illustration of what the norm meant in certain particular
 contexts".

  J. Dunn in Unity and Diversity in the New Testament speaks also of
this "freezing of tradition" more fully drawing out the implications
that it is so "contingent on the particuliarities of the particular
historical circumstance" that it calls into question any lasting
significance of canonical, creedal or doctrinal authority.

  Koester in Trajectories Through Early Christianity is probably
the most radical.  Koester with J. M. Robinson and the "Harvard School"
following the history-of-religions approach of F. C. Baur have added to
the above the "critique of ideologies" calling for the "radical
dismantling of the New Testament categories which would eradicate the
last vestiges of canonical (ideological) bias."
  Koester et al would like to dissolve the question of truth altogether
understanding "orthodoxy"(truth) and heresy in terms of political
"winners" and "losers" of history.  "The formation of the canonical
Gospels simply served to establish the superiority of those writings
which were prized by that party which had won political hegemony."
  
  For all of the above "sola scriptura" is replaced by "sola traditio".
"Sola scriptura" is really the hidden ideology of the political winners
raised to divinity.

  Tinkham has well understood the historical problem.  He writes -

>Although the church (hopefully) grows in its understanding of God and
>his work on earth, it is not safe to trust our present understanding
>too completely as being the best possible description of Christian
>doctrine.  All cultures and times have flaws and biases, our own
>included, and these flaws and biases can distort our understanding of
>God.  One way to try to compensate for these biases is to compare our
>present understanding with the beliefs held by the church in different
>times and places.  The creeds provide valuable information for making
>this comparison:  they tell us what, in a given time and place, was
>considered to be orthodox by the church. 

  The response from Koester might be this.  Why exclude anything from
the critique ?  Extending Tinkhams insight one might say that a culture
in any particular time has an "idiom" (=interpretive system) for
construing Reality.  If as Tinkham says, these "idioms" are in question
then why limit the criticism to post-biblical times.  Why not center
the critique on the NT itself.
  This is the heart of the matter.  Every modern theologian since
Bultmann (The NT and Mythology) has taken up this problem - how does
one deal with the mythological categories of thought in the NT that,
in Bultmanns words, "no modern man can accept" as Reality.

  What does Tinkham have after his survey of history tells him "what,
in a given time and place, was considered to be orthodox by the church".
What I think he has is the history of Christian thought (modern academic
discipline of Historical Theology).  But does he have any "truth".  He
has only succession of one thing replacing another.

>... One way to try to compensate for these biases is to compare our
>present understanding with the beliefs held by the church in different
>times and places...

  What does one do with a "history of biases".  Can we extend it to the
NT.  Is "to believe" a bias ?  What does "compensation" mean here.  Do
we want a "value neutral" judgement on the "objective realities" of an
experiential religion.  What place does "value free" have in religion.  
Is not the name of the game value as significance for human being.  Is
the NT mythology the order the physical world or is it rather the
ontological order of human being projected onto the physical world - a
problem of ontological not ontic reality.

  As for Wingate, what does citing an 1886 Anglican formulation have to
do with the 20th century.  For that matter, the RC church can cite its
1865 position of papal infallibility.  Simply *asserting* things like
this these days and claiming some transhistorical authority for them
will get you nothing but the condemnation of ideology by the
contemporary theological community.

  You can go two ways on this.  You can utter the Anglican ideology and
say this is the way you *define* reality to be.  Contemporary theology
will have no argument with you.  Or, you can offer Anglican theology as
*description* of the way the world is.  In the latter case you better
be ready to address the contemporary historical/theological questions
that Dunn, Best, Koester and the rest are going to raise.  The
historical reality of theology moves by passing through criticism not
by passing around it, or by ignoring it, or by refuting it by simply
asserting traditional creeds.

  "Tradition frozen in time" does not easily equate with the type of
"Truth" that Christians want to claim for it.  Why are the "losers" in
history always "heretics".
  "True doctrine" is the shifting images of phantasmagoria manufactured
in the historical process by those parties who reach political hegemony
in any historical epoch.

  Gary