Cyberbrethren and Conditional Subscriptions
Some time ago, Cyberbrethren posted a concise and helpful explanation of the differences between quia and quaetenus subscriptions to the Lutheran Confessions, about which I would like to comment. I would also like to address the issue of "a pious sounding conditional subscription to the Lutheran Confessions", because there are all sorts of "goats dressed up like sheep" on that issue.
Before I get to any of that, there is another matter that I would like to address. In setting up a particular example of "a pious sounding conditional subscription", Cyberbrethren constructed an argument from a logical fallacy called "the straw man"; it was an argument against a misrepresentation of someone else's position. (No, dear reader, you have not stumbled onto Bill Cwirla's blog; with you, I am eagerly anticipating the next installment in his logical fallacy series...) Where one might be tempted to offer charity in assuming that Cyberbrethren's comments were based on a misreading of "a certain blog site", there have been a string of posts from Cyberbrethren which - without naming this "certain Pastor" or his congregation or identifying the statuary in their building - seem rather aggressive towards them.
On his own blog, the "certain Pastor" had stated that he prefers the words and thoughts of church fathers such as St Leo more than his own words or thoughts. (I'm puzzled as to how this might constitute an "unhealthy regard for the Early Church Fathers".) He then went on to say,
"I tremble at the hubris of attempting to correct them [the fathers], cognizant of the fact that they are more knowledgable of the Scriptures, and holier in speech and conduct, than I" [emphasis mine].
In responding to such a post, a blogger should at least look at the context (in this case, an introduction to a paraphrase of something written by St Leo) and should respond to what the statement is actually saying: the "certain Pastor" wishes to exercise great care as *he* attempts to correct and paraphrase the words of such men as were undoubtedly "more knowledgable of the Scriptures" and "holier in speech and conduct" than himself. Construing this post (which never even mentions the Lutheran Confessions) into some sort of attempt to make a pious sounding conditional subscription to the Lutheran Confessions is really beneath Cyberbrethren. At best, such misrepresentations are annoying; at worst, they cause a blogger's reliability to be called into question.
5 comments:
The problem is that elsewhere, and often, this "certain pastor" has made very clear what his regard for the Confessions truly is and how he considers them authoritative.
EO sympathizers are great ones for doing the whole "pious sounding conditional subscription" to the Confesions.
You can call it a "straw man" and attack my "reliability" all you want, but the sad fact is that this "certain pastor's" public papers more than vindicate my position that he, and others like him, are in fact conditionally subscribing to the Confessions "in so far as" they agre with the ancient church fathers, and that is not a quia subscription.
(1) If Cyberbrethren did not have a lot of good and reliable material, I wouldn't have taken the time to read it in the first place. Paul McCain has a lot of good, reliable, and interesting things to say; I have enjoyed reading and relying upon what he has written for many years now. (Take as an example his excellent booklet on Communion Fellowship which has been available for quite some time.)
(2) My purpose in posting about the use of a "straw man" was not to attack the reliability of Cyberbrethren or Paul McCain. I was annoyed that an otherwise interesting post had been muddied with a poorly chosen example that fell short of illustrating the point. (A certain pastor is not guilty of a conditional subscription to the confessions simply because (a) he likes what the church fathers have to say better than what he has to say or (b) he is a little timid about reworking the writings of the fathers for use in his congregation.) I posted with the hope that more care would be taken in the future when addressing this or a similar situation.
(3) Those who use fallacious arguments detract from their own reliability. Readers (like myself) trust blogs (like Cyberbrethren) to make their cases with illustrations that bear out their arguments. Check with Bill Cwirla on this: If an author frequently uses fallacious reasoning (like straw men) to support what he has to say, his readers will eventually begin to question whether he is a credible source of information. (This is true of people, newspapers, television, or anything that you might find on the internet.)
(4) Regarding the "certain Pastor" who is the topic of this post:
(a) One might have assumed with charity that the Cyberbrethren post was based on a misreading of the quotation. (Personally, I had to read it several times before I understood what the Pastor was saying.) However, the somewhat aggressive nature with which Cyberbrethren has engaged issues specifically regarding this Pastor and his congregation really calls that charity into question.
(b) If this Pastor has made his position "very clear" elsewhere and often, and even in "public papers", then it should not be a problem to find and use those statements instead of using illustrations that turn out to be less than convincing. Give me a page reference from the paper that he gave in Chicago, or direct me to something specific on his blog or in the papers that he has available on his church's website, or point me to an offending paragraph in his church bulletin.
Give me something more than an accusation that "this man is obvious" without giving anything obvious in support of these accusations. That's not an honest way of going about things. By giving such evidence, a blogger will demonstrate to his readers that he is seriously striving to be a reliable source of information for them.
(If you had used such reliable evidence and clear examples in the first place, then I really would have had nothing to say in response to your post.)
If you are really interested in grappling with the problem of a conditional subscription couched in the pious sounding appeal to the Church Fathers, perhaps you might spend your time actually dealing with that point. If you wish to focus your attention on that certain pastor's certain paper in 2004, perhaps you could take up his comments under the section of the paper titled, "the inversion of the catholic principle."
I'm sorry you believe my example has made my observations unreliable, but I don't see how the more recent comments actually say anything different than the older comments.
To demonsrate good faith, I'll happily swap the one comments in my post with the other and then we can see what comes of that.
It seems I can't copy anything out of the paper you have referred to. No doubt my only technical ineptitude.
The portion of that paper titled, "The Inversion of the Catholic Principle" is precisly where the pastor embraces a view that our confession to the Confessions, and frankly, even our faithfulness to the Holy Scripture itself is conditioned on what the Early Church fathers have to say about them, and as anyone knows who has spent much time with the Early Church Fathers, that is very much of a mixtum compositum of truth and error. Our confessional subscription is not, as this pastor puts it, based on our confession that the BOC agrees with Scripture, but precisely in that it does not disagree with Scriptures, but actually, does not disagree with the Ancient Church. This is elevating the witness of the Early Church to the level of both Scritpure and the Confessions, rather than as witnesses to the truth. The pastor in question will have to take up his concern with the Formula of Concord for "inflicting" this view on the Lutheran Church, for it does not start its appeal to witnesses with the Early Church, but first, and foremost, and over all the pure source and fountain of Israel, Holy Scripture, but this pastor, ironically like certain liberals in our Synod, claim that pure source does not mean only source, that there is actually an extra-Biblical source of doctrine.
That is quite a non-Lutheran way of proceeding, but of course fits perfect with Eastern Orthodoxy, which this pastor advocates and advances.
Again, a quaetenus subscription takes a multitude of forms. And some sound quite pious. This just happens to be one of those pious quatenus subscriptions to the Lutheran Confessions.
The paper is found here:
http://www.ziondetroit.org/publications/confessions-options.pdf
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