Development of orthodoxy

This short post has little to do with Eastern Orthodoxy, it’s just highlighting a quote from one of my Dad’s papers. I’ve been looking into a bizarre claim I heard recently that John MacArthur’s view of Sola Fide is not reformed but actually Roman Catholic. That will require a longer post at some point, but my father is a theological scholar and he had published some articles on the whole Lordship Salvation debate that MacArthur’s view became a point of contention during. In the first paper he deals with an older debate between Lewis Sperry Chafer and BB Warfield, aka Dallas Theological Seminary vs Princeton.

Warfield held to a view of “progressive orthodoxy” whereby orthodoxy was a process but it was essentially a geologic model of progress, because the orthodoxy could only progress on what had been fully established theologically prior, which to Warfield was the Westminster confession of faith. So that is treated like a layer of rock that the next layer of orthodoxy must be built upon. This view is absurd for a few reasons, but my father quotes Craig Blaising on the issue of how orthodoxy is developed:

Theories that attempt to account for development merely in the addition of doctrine (with no alteration in any expression and no subtraction of doctrine) or merely in deductive elaboration of earlier doctrinal principles (thus no real change and the associated problem of creedal tyranny) are inadequate to account for the actual historical phenomenon of orthodoxy. Orthodoxy develops not only by addition and elaboration but also with some occasional adjustment and alteration in the expression, explanation, or definition of doctrine. It also develops with occasional restructuring of the systematic relationship of doctrines. And it must be admitted that competing systems of doctrine have coexisted within the stream of Christian orthodoxy.

This seems exactly right and touches upon my recent post about becoming Anglican. The streams of Christianity are more like actual streams than geologic layers, and theological development is a more organic give and take affair than pure progress. Makes me think Warfield was more influenced by his progressive era than I realized, because this insight is inherently Conservative and goes against the Whiggish notion that progress is linear.

Also there’s a real beauty to a great three part name:

Lewis Sperry Chafer

Benjamin Breckinridge Warfield

Aaron Craig Gleason 😉

We need to think harder about what we name our children. A good manly sounding name, especially a good three part name might do our good in someone’s life than we realize.

Part of what has always driven me to want to write and publish was knowing that AC Gleason sounded good as a name. I know it probably seems silly, but there’s a reason people change their names when they know they’ll be public. I like my name as it is. Naming things is important and powerful.

Thanks mom and dad for giving me a good name.