LOL, The Lutheran World Federation just canceled The Nicene Creed in The West

Rev. Anne Burghardt, General Secretary of the Lutheran World Federation

 

The Lutheran World Federation just resolved the problem of the insertion of the filioque with a reactionary surrender to the Orthodox, jettisoning reason for emotion.

"Let's just recite The Nicene Creed without 'and the Son' and then we can be friends". 

. . . we suggest that the translation of the Greek original (without the Filioque) be used in the hope that this will contribute to the healing of age-old divisions . . ..

Here.

Is there a better example in the long history of Christian theology of the failure of the church to be guided into all the truth?

The Protestant schism is only 507 years old, the East-West now 970.

The filioque was a reasonable development within Trinitarianism, stubbornly resisted by the church in the East because it wasn't explicitly Nicene (325). Its first known promulgation at the Third Council of Toledo in 589 in a context of Arianism, the primarily Eastern heresy from the early fourth century, spread in the West but rankled the East, so much so it became a red line by 1054.

They got tired of their reputation for mistakes, I guess.

The first Protestant Reformers insisted generally on the text of Scripture to guide into all the truth, in keeping with the thinking of ancient fathers of the church such as Athanasius and Cyril of Alexandria, and Epiphanius of Salamis, who specifically on the subject of the procession of the Holy Spirit from both the Father "and the Son" thought it was the plain teaching of the New Testament.

The Reformers thought that the New Testament Scriptures were the result of that process described by Jesus in the Gospel of John, that the Spirit would guide into all the truth. To them the filioque was obvious.

Howbeit when he, the Spirit of truth, is come, he will guide you into all truth: for he shall not speak of himself; but whatsoever he shall hear, that shall he speak: and he will shew you things to come. He shall glorify me: for he shall receive of mine, and shall shew it unto you. All things that the Father hath are mine: therefore said I, that he shall take of mine, and shall shew it unto you.

-- John 16:13ff.

To contemporary Lutherans? Not so much.

Intellectually, if we may use that term elastically, the liberal Lutherans now have more in common with the enthusiasts, the Schwärmer, the 16th century's charismatics and radicals, than they do with the Protestant Reformation.

To them the Spirit is still revealing truths to all and sundry: His truth, her truth, my truth, your truth, hir truth, their truth, but the more important thing is the feeling of unity. Besides, most Christians today have no clue about an obscure topic like the filioque. It's a speedbump, not a roadblock.

The way for this in liberal Lutheranism was prepared for by their enthusiastic embrace of modern critical scholarship of the Bible, with the result that everything has been up for grabs: The theory of evolution, women's ordination, homosexuality, et cetera, et cetera, et cetera. Hey, why not the filioque? "Just take it . . . to the limit . . . one more time."

The origins of that, however, ironically enough, are in the Enlightenment rediscovery of . . . reason. What goes around, comes around, you might say, as the phonograph needle scratches across the vinyl.

Ultimately speaking, neither the well of human reason nor the well of human feeling produces rivers of living water.

I have seen all the works that are done under the sun; and, behold, all is vanity and vexation of spirit. 

-- Ecclesiastes 1:14

The Fourth Gospel is conveniently self-authenticating and self-insulating about the reliability of the church's recollection of the teaching of Jesus

 But the Comforter, which is the Holy Ghost, whom the Father will send in my name, he shall teach you all things, and bring all things to your remembrance, whatsoever I have said unto you.

 

-- John 14:26

 

I have yet many things to say unto you, but ye cannot bear them now.  Howbeit when he, the Spirit of truth, is come, he will guide you into all truth: for he shall not speak of himself; but whatsoever he shall hear, that shall he speak: and he will shew you things to come. 

 

-- John 16:12f. 

 

This reflects the essential "my truth" enthusiasm at the heart of early Christianity without which there would be no St. Paul with his Christ mysticism.

 

This is the true origin of individualism and subjectivism in the West. It is ultimately self-defeating because it leads logically to relativism.

Joseph Henry Thayer's chief example of anthropos "without distinction of sex" isn't

A woman when she is in travail hath sorrow, because her hour is come: but as soon as she is delivered of the child, she remembereth no more the anguish, for joy that a man is born into the world.

ἡ γυνὴ ὅταν τίκτῃ λύπην ἔχει ὅτι ἦλθεν ἡ ὥρα αὐτῆς· ὅταν δὲ γεννήσῃ τὸ παιδίον οὐκ ἔτι μνημονεύει τῆς θλίψεως διὰ τὴν χαρὰν ὅτι ἐγεννήθη ἄνθρωπος εἰς τὸν κόσμον.

 

-- John 16:21

John obviously had to hand τὸ παιδίον to express human being without distinction of sex if he had meant that again, but he uses ἄνθρωπος instead. The birth of a man-child was a default value of Jewish women.

Thayer was infamous in his own time for denying the "unerring verbal accuracy" of the New Testament, claiming that the Lutherans didn't make the Bible the "standard" in the same way as his fellow American Congregational Calvinists had done.

 

Thayer, lauded for his devotion to the truth by his contemporaries in the scholarly community, believed in a myth.

 

Thayer got his information second hand, not from personal knowledge of the history of Lutheranism, relying instead on Philip Schaff, who himself was notably ignorant of much about Luther, especially about the enthusiasm for the Formula of Concord in his own time, which states in the opening:

We believe, teach, and confess that the sole rule and standard according to which all dogmas together with [all] teachers should be estimated and judged are the prophetic and apostolic Scriptures of the Old and of the New Testament alone . . ..

Thayer obviously never got the Lutheran memo, either, to let John interpret John. Circumcision was for an ἄνθρωπος after all (John 7:23).

Back in those days, apparently, you could in fact tell a Harvard man quite a lot . . . of hooey.

 

He came to throw fire on the earth, and the sword and division, but not peace!

You either follow the Synoptic Tradition, or John (14:27, 16:33), it cannot be both.

Think not that I am come to send peace on earth: I came not to send peace, but a sword.

-- Matthew 10:34 (οὐκ ἦλθον βαλεῖν εἰρήνην ἀλλὰ μάχαιραν)

Suppose ye that I am come to give peace on earth? I tell you, Nay; but rather division:

-- Luke 12:51

Who Rules The World, The Lord Or The Devil?

"He raises up the poor from the dust; he lifts the needy from the ash heap, to make them sit with princes and inherit a seat of honor. For the pillars of the earth are the LORD'S, and on them he has set the world."

-- 1 Samuel 2:8

"The earth is the LORD'S, and the fulness thereof; the world, and they that dwell therein."

-- Psalm 24:1

"Hear, O my people, and I will speak; O Israel, and I will testify against thee: I am God, even thy God. ... If I were hungry, I would not tell thee: for the world is mine, and the fulness thereof."

-- Psalm 50:7, 12

"The heavens are thine, the earth also is thine: as for the world and the fulness thereof, thou hast founded them."

-- Psalm 89:11

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"Now is the judgment of this world: now shall the prince of this world be cast out."

-- John 12:31

"I will no longer talk much with you, for the ruler of this world is coming. He has no power over me."

-- John 14:30

"[T]he ruler of this world is judged."

-- John 16:11

"For we wrestle not against flesh and blood, but against principalities, against powers, against the rulers of the darkness of this world, against spiritual wickedness in high places."

-- Ephesians 6:12

To Whom Does A God Pray?

And when he had sent the multitudes away, he went up into a mountain apart to pray: and when the evening was come, he was there alone. (Mt.14:23)

Then were there brought unto him little children, that he should put [his] hands on them, and pray: and the disciples rebuked them. (Mt.19:13)

Then cometh Jesus with them unto a place called Gethsemane, and saith unto the disciples, Sit ye here, while I go and pray yonder. (Mt.26:36)

And he went a little further, and fell on his face, and prayed, saying, O my Father, if it be possible, let this cup pass from me: nevertheless not as I will, but as thou [wilt]. (Mt.26:39)

He went away again the second time, and prayed, saying, O my Father, if this cup may not pass away from me, except I drink it, thy will be done. (Mt.26:42)

And he left them, and went away again, and prayed the third time, saying the same words. (Mt.26:44)

Thinkest thou that I cannot now pray to my Father, and he shall presently give me more than twelve legions of angels? (Mt.26:53)

And in the morning, rising up a great while before day, he went out, and departed into a solitary place, and there prayed. (Mk.1:35)

And when he had sent them away, he departed into a mountain to pray. (Mk.6:46)

And they came to a place which was named Gethsemane: and he saith to his disciples, Sit ye here, while I shall pray. (Mk.14:32)

And he went forward a little, and fell on the ground, and prayed that, if it were possible, the hour might pass from him. (Mk.14:35)

And again he went away, and prayed, and spake the same words. (Mk.14:39)

Now when all the people were baptized, it came to pass, that Jesus also being baptized, and praying, the heaven was opened, (Lk.3:21)

And he withdrew himself into the wilderness, and prayed. (Lk.5:16)

And it came to pass in those days, that he went out into a mountain to pray, and continued all night in prayer to God. (Lk.6:12)

And it came to pass, as he was alone praying, his disciples were with him: and he asked them, saying, Whom say the people that I am? (Lk.9:18)

And it came to pass about an eight days after these sayings, he took Peter and John and James, and went up into a mountain to pray. And as he prayed, the fashion of his countenance was altered, and his raiment [was] white [and] glistering.(Lk.9:28f.)

And it came to pass, that, as he was praying in a certain place, when he ceased, one of his disciples said unto him, Lord, teach us to pray, as John also taught his disciples. (Lk.11:1)

But I have prayed for thee, that thy faith fail not: and when thou art converted, strengthen thy brethren. (Lk.22:32)

And he was withdrawn from them about a stone's cast, and kneeled down, and prayed, (Lk:22:41)

And being in an agony he prayed more earnestly: and his sweat was as it were great drops of blood falling down to the ground. And when he rose up from prayer, and was come to his disciples, he found them sleeping for sorrow, (Lk.22:44f.)

And I will pray the Father, and he shall give you another Comforter, that he may abide with you for ever; (Jn.14:16)

At that day ye shall ask in my name: and I say not unto you, that I will pray the Father for you: (Jn.16:26)

I pray for them: I pray not for the world, but for them which thou hast given me; for they are thine. (Jn.17:9)

I pray not that thou shouldest take them out of the world, but that thou shouldest keep them from the evil. (Jn.17:15)

Neither pray I for these alone, but for them also which shall believe on me through their word; (Jn.17:20)