Further Reflection on the Judgment of the SJC Panel

One of the most interesting statements in the PCA's preliminary decision rendered by the panel of its Standing Judicial Commision is the following:

By appealing to Scripture... to justify positions that are out of accord with our Standards, an individual, or group, is in effect... amending the Constitution, not by judicial act, but by personal interpretation. If someone believes that the Standards have incorrectly or inadequately stated what Scripture says about a particular topic, then instead of ignoring what our Standards state and justifying their positions by personal interpretations of Scripture which are not consistent with the Standards, they should propose amendments to the Standards to clarify or expand the Standards, since our Constitution holds them out to be "standard expositions of the teachings of Scripture."

A couple thoughts in response to this. First, this calls into question the validity of the tactic used by Federal Visionists and others who insist that they are not contradicting what the Standards say by their suspicious expositions of Scripture, but only going beyond the Standards and saying more (this is done, we are told, so as to reflect more accurately what the Bible actually teaches).

My question at this point goes something like this: If the Westminster Standards teach that union with Christ is a saving and therefore non-losable benefit, but if I decide to "go-beyond-the-Sandards-but-not-contradict-them" by teaching my congregation that they may lose their union with Christ, how have I not fallen under the condemnation of the SJC's judgment above?

Secondly, how is it that Catholic and Orthodox believers can maintain that Reformed confessionalists are no different from the no-creed-but-Christ, just-me-and-my-Bible evangelicals when the PCA's highest courts says that "by appealing to Scripture to justify positions that are out of accord with our Standards, an individual is in effect amending the Constitution, not by judicial act, but by personal interpretation"? Is not this statement effectively denying sole interpretive authority to the individual, and placing it rather in the hands of the church and its Confession and Catechisms?

That's all. I just needed to get a couple things off my chest....

Horton on the Canon

I have been re-reading Michael Horton's People and Place: A Covenant Ecclesiology, and I came across some good stuff on the canon that may prove to be good fodder for discussion:

Though usually advertised as a shift away from modern individualism, the drift toward assimilating soteriology to ecclesiology, justification to the church and its virtuous practices, and the word to ecclesial interpretation is more aptly described as a shift away from God's redeeming work to our own. To ask what consistutes the unity of the church, then, is to inquire as to what creates the church itself. The answer to both is the Word of God, both as means of grace and canonical norm. The gospel does not depend on reason, politics, marketing, or even on the church; it creates its own rationality, polis, publicity, and church. The gospel is self-sufficient, pulling everything else behind it.

This raises the critical issue at the heart or protests new and old against sola scriptura: the logical priority of canon and church. The sufficiency of Scripture is not an abstract, predogmatic rule but is intrinsically related to our view of God, the covenant, and redemption. Just as creation is the result of a conversation between the persons of the Trinity, the church is the offspring rather than the origin of the gospel. It is no wonder then that Paul compares the work of the gospel to God's word in creation (Rom. 4:16-17). While the covenant community is temporally prior to the inscripturated canon, the word that creates ex nihilo asserts its temporal and communicative priority over both.... The script has priority over even its most significant performances. Furthermore, the canon not only judges our poor performances but also liberates us from having to repeat or defend them.

The covenantal context proves its value once more when considering the claim that the church created the canon. God's word spoken has now also been committed to writing, a canon or consitution. The Bible is the textual deposit of God's unfading Word, whose oral proclamation had all along been creating and sustaining a church in the world since the protevangelium of Genesis 3:15. The church is not purpose-driven, but promise-driven.

Ecclesiastical authority derives from and is qualified and measured by its constiting norm: because we have this covenantal consitution, we are this particular covenant community. Thus, the priority of canon over church is the corrolary of the priority of God's grace over "human will or exertion" (Rom. 9:16).

Germinating around its nucleus of Christ's words and deeds, this canon--at first proclaimed, heard, and recalled--became a completed deposit and was treated as such long before the list of canonical books was officially prescribed in response to spurious texts.

"Theology is not free speech but holy speech," notes Webster. "Hence the authority of Scripture is a matter for the church's acknowledgement, not its ascription." ... Webster says that the solo verbo [by the Word alone] is the correlate of the sola fide [through faith alone]. To give priority to the Word is to give priority to the action of God.

As the ecclesial body cannot be equated with its sovereign head, ecclesial speech (tradition) cannot be equated with God's Word. Since Christ's person and work--and apostolic testimony to it--are qualitatively distinguished from the church and its practices, the canon does not simply offer us a good story to complete by imitation (a corrolary of the exemplary view of the atonement) or repeat by further acts of atonement and reconciliation, but a completed script that draws us into its story line as performers. The canonical characters are in a qualitatively different class than the postcanonical church that performs the play.

As in the secular polis, so in the covenant community: the distinction between the consistution (text) and the courts (interpretation) preserves us from reducing ecclesial speech to solipsism: the arbitrary exercise of power based on the church talking to itself. Yet there are still the courts. We read the Bible together, and our communaal interpretations--in the form of creeds, confessions, catechisms, and church orders--have a binding, though secondary, authority. Just as the extraordinary vocation of prophets and apostles is qualitatively distinguished from the ordinary calling of ministers today, the magisterial authority of the canon must take precedence over the ministerial authority of the church.

Thoughts?

The Boastings of a Straight-Faced Presbyterian, Part One

I mentioned a couple days ago that I plan to take up Called to Communion blogger Tim Troutman’s challenge to post an article on the glories of Presbyterianism with a straight face. This post will be part one of two, and rest assured, my face is very straight.

The first locus I would like to address to demonstrate Presbyterianism’s awesomeness is our doctrine of Scripture. We confess:

We may be moved and induced by the testimony of the Church to an high and reverent esteem of the Holy Scripture. And the heavenliness of the matter, the efficacy of the doctrine, the majesty of the style, the consent of all the parts, the scope of the whole (which is, to give all glory to God), the full discovery it makes of the only way of man's salvation, the many other incomparable excellencies, and the entire perfection thereof, are arguments whereby it does abundantly evidence itself to be the Word of God: yet notwithstanding, our full persuasion and assurance of the infallible truth and divine authority thereof, is from the inward work of the Holy Spirit bearing witness by and with the Word in our hearts (Westminster Confession of Faith 1.5).

The supreme judge by which all controversies of religion are to be determined, and all decrees of councils, opinions of ancient writers, doctrines of men, and private spirits, are to be examined, and in whose sentence we are to rest, can be no other but the Holy Spirit speaking in the Scripture (WCF 1.10).

Here we see that, despite the manifold internal evidence whereby Scripture demonstrates its divine authorship, it is ultimately through the testimony of the Holy Spirit whereby the believer is taught to esteem what has been written.

Does this leave any loopholes? Of course is does. Does it answer every conceivable objection? Not by a long shot. But Presbyterians are not rationalists who toss and turn at night over the possibility that a hole in our system might be poked, nor do we wring our hands over what to do if someone disagrees with us. If our Lord could appeal to what "is written" to answer the tests of the serpent, and if Paul could prescribe a remedy for heresy that consisted primarily in getting the gospel right even if he himself got it wrong, then despite its lack of perfect tidiness, we are content to trust the voice of the Spirit of Christ speaking in Scripture to Jesus' sheep. If he is our Good Shepherd, then we can hear his voice.

Concerning the role the church has in interpreting Scripture, we confess that

It belongs to synods and councils, ministerially to determine controversies of faith, and cases of conscience; to set down rules and directions for the better ordering of the public worship of God, and government of his Church; to receive complaints in cases of maladministration, and authoritatively to determine the same; which decrees and determinations, if consonant to the Word of God, are to be received with reverence and submission; not only for their agreement with the Word, but also for the power whereby they are made, as being an ordinance of God appointed thereunto in His Word (WCF 31.3).

Again, this does not preclude the possibility of confusion, but we live in a confusing world filled with false prophets and bad angels disguised as good ones (didn’t Jesus warn us about this?). But despite its lack of airtightness, this approach does pretty good justice to the distinction between revelation that is uttered under the direct inspiration of the Holy Spirit on the one hand, and the non-inspired interpretation of those utterances on the other. Sure, the church can make mistakes and must grow in her understanding of God's Word, but why should that be something we are afraid to admit? Paul wasn’t:

And he gave the apostles, the prophets, the evangelists, the shepherds and teachers, to equip the saints for the work of ministry, for building up the body of Christ, until we all attain to the unity of the faith and of the knowledge of the Son of God, to mature manhood, to the measure of the stature of the fullness of Christ, so that we may no longer be children, tossed to and fro by the waves and carried about by every wind of doctrine, by human cunning, by craftiness in deceitful schemes. Rather, speaking the truth in love, we are to grow up in every way into him who is the head, into Christ, from whom the whole body, joined and held together by every joint with which it is equipped, when each part is working properly, makes the body grow so that it builds itself up in love (Eph. 4:11-16).

So to sum up, the Reformed understanding of the relationship between the church and Scripture is anything but pristine, but it does accurately reflect the nature of life in this age before the consummation. Indeed, on that Day all the loose ends will be tied up and all our questions will be answered. But until then, we who embrace our pilgrim status and are enabled to boast in seeming weakness and glory in seeming shame are content to labor, to learn, to grow, all the while knowing that God will guide his church into all truth.

Abraham's True Sons, Alexandria's True Bishops

The other day I was directed to a fascinating discussion on the Puritan Board (which I've subsequently joined) on the topic of Sola Scriptura. The thread was started because one of the members was being challenged by a friend who had been investigating Catholic and Orthodox theology and began challenging him about whether the Bible and the early church fathers teach that Scripture is the believer's sole authority on matters of doctrine and practice.

Here's the thread: http://www.puritanboard.com/f121/sola-scriptura-scriptural-50212/

Now, as I read the various responses (some characterized by heat, others by light), I did notice a fair bit of straw-man argumentation. But fallacies aside, there were also a lot of quotes from church fathers that seem to indicate that true apostolic succession is what Protestants say it is, namely, a succession primarily of doctrine, with the issue of physical, laying-on-of-hands succession being a matter of historical coincidence and nothing more. Consider this quote from Gregory of Nazianzus (330-389):

Thus, and for these reasons, by the vote of the whole people, not in the evil fashion which has since prevailed, nor by means of bloodshed and oppression, but in an apostolic and spiritual manner, he is led up to the throne of Saint Mark, to succeed him in piety, no less than in office; in the latter indeed at a great distance from him, in the former, which is the genuine right of succession, following him closely. For unity in doctrine deserves unity in office; and a rival teacher sets up a rival throne; the one is a successor in reality, the other but in name. For it is not the intruder, but he whose rights are intruded upon, who is the successor, not the lawbreaker, but the lawfully appointed, not the man of contrary opinions, but the man of the same faith; if this is not what we mean by successor, he succeeds in the same sense as disease to health, darkness to light, storm to calm, and frenzy to sound sense. NPNF2: Vol. VII, Oration XXI - On the Great Athanasius, bishop of Alexandria, §8.

Gregory seems to be saying that "the genuine right of succession" is rooted in a bishop's piety, without which he, though enjoying literal apostolic succession, is "only a successor in name." One is reminded of the argument both of Jesus and Paul that Abraham's true succession of children is traced not through physical lineage but through something not quite as visible, but nonetheless ar more important, namely faith.

Thoughts?

Bono, Luther, and the Seeds of Modernity

I’ve been on a bit of a ‘90s U2 kick of late (possibly due to the scheduled release of No Line on the Horizon in March, which has been compared to Achtung Baby), and so I’m (re)reading Bill Flanagan’s U2 at the End of the World. The author has been a close friend of the band’s since the early ‘80s and was given permission to follow them around during their ZooTv tour (’92-’93) and basically be privy to every show, every party, every conversation, and every recording session. Not a bad job this Flanagan fellow has.

Anyway, I read this passage the other night that I found interesting:

Bono is quick to admit that many of his ideas are instinctive, not intellectual—he does not have the time to be rigorous in researching or testing them. One of the theories that gets him into great arguments is that he believes that modernism started with Luther, with the Reformation, with the dismantling of the iconography of the culture and insistence on simplicity and function…. Bono is convinced that all this stripping down and directness goes back to the Protestant impulse, back to Luther, and that the modernists made the great mistake of taking on the antireligion of the existentialists and lost that thread. (It’s one of the wonders of Bono’s considerable intellect that he can construct a unified field theory of all his interests—even when they have nothing to do with each other.)

Now I know that my Catholic readers will jump on this and say, “See? Even Bono realizes that the seeds of modern man’s supposed autonomy are to be found in the Reformation with its individualistic doctrine of Sola Scriptura.” And it may very well be the case that when you mix together Sola Scriptura, anti-authoritarianism, and Descartes, you may not exactly like what you get as a result. Still, I can’t help but wonder how we are to avoid some degree of individualism, whether our home is Geneva, Saddleback, or Rome. We are all evaluating some body of data, whether it is Scripture or the early church fathers (or both), and coming to some conclusion or another about what they have to tell us.

So maybe evangelicals should stop dismissing Presbyterians for our refusal to let the Bible speak for itself; and maybe Presbyterians should soften our self-congratulatory tone when slapping ourselves on the back because of how well we avoid the individualism of the Bible-only, Anabaptist evangelicals out there; and maybe Catholics should stop looking down their noses at all of us and admit that they employ the same private judgment to determine that the Magisterium replaces private judgment as we do when we determine that the Bible speaks clearly enough on its core teachings that even children can understand its basic message.

What Happens When We Read the Scriptures as Scripture?

Over at the blog Pontifications, the author (Alvin Kimel) makes some interesting observations with respect to biblical hermeneutics. Kimel begins by stating that any biblical passage must be interpreted within its larger context in order to ascertain its literal meaning and authorial intent. Little shock there. But what happens when a six-chapter book like Galatians, a few hundred years after it is written, now finds itself to be but a small part in a sixty six-chapter book like the Bible? All of a sudden, the context of Galatians is much larger than it is when consid-ered in isolation.

Why is this significant? Well, if Galatians is not a book but a chapter in a Book, and if that Book of which Galatians is a chapter is authored ultimately by God, then in the same way that Galatians 4 must be read in the light of the epistle’s other five chapters, so Galatians as a whole must be read in the light of the rest of Scripture in its entirety. And if context determines and expands a text’s meaning, then the epistle’s human authorial intent may not be the same as its divine authorial intent. In a word, when we read Galatians as Scripture, its literal meaning may or may not be identical to its canonical meaning.

This, Kimel argues, is why the grammatical-historical method of interpretation alone is insufficient for determining a biblical text’s true significance. According to this approach, anyone can interpret the Bible provided they have the requisite tools and employ the proper methodology. “Poppycock!” Kimel says (or at least he would have if he appreciated how awesome that word is). The Bible is not like any other book, nor is it merely a species of a broader genus known as “Holy Writings.” Scripture is sui generis, unique, one-of-a-kind, meaning that even if a passage’s literal meaning can be deduced, its sensus plenior—or fuller sense—is beyond the grasp of the mere earthling.

The point, as the Reformers insisted, is that the Bible is the church’s book and must be interpreted in conjunction with, and never in isolation from, those who have gone before us. Moreover, Kimel (citing Swinburne approvingly) draws the conclusion that if Paul himself taught a seminary class on his own writings, his voice would be but one of many seeking to determine the true meaning of the epistles he penned. And further still, since the Bible is unique and one-of-a-kind, the rules for interpreting it cannot arise from Scripture itself (any more than I could invent a new language and then write a book attempting to teach you, in my new language, how to speak it). No, Kimel says, hermeneutical principles must arise from within the community to which Scripture has been given, and from which it has emerged. And more specifically, the task of interpreting Holy Writ is given to those who have been set aside and ordained for the task, i.e., ministers of the Word lawfully called.

So much for American, egalitarian, Bible only-ism….

Leggo My Bible!

After interacting with Calvin’s view of holy orders in which the Geneva reformer admits the sacramental nature of “true and lawful ordinations,” the President of the Upper Crust Theological Society writes:

I wonder what implications might follow for the Protestant (Reformed) Church today if it recovered this sentiment of Calvin.... How might the Protestant (Reformed) Church view differently its ministers if it understood Ordination to constitute a sacrament in some “true and lawful” sense? The egalitarianism which plagues the Protestant Church today is unlikely to accommodate itself to such an obvious distinction among the members of the Church (the distinction, that is, between those who have and those who have not received this “spiritual grace”).... But taking the time to do exactly that might foster a bit of appreciation for what ministers do, and what we (as lay members of the Church) can get from them—something which we can’t get from, say, our personal devotions, or any other number of the various sacraments we create for ourselves (in our dogged determination to be sanctified by sight rather than faith).

This sentiment is expressed more strongly by Methodist theologian Stanley Hauerwas who suggests that “No task is more important than for the Church to take the Bible out of the hands of individual Christians in North America.”

As confessional and Reformed Protestants our position has always been that the Bible is the church’s book and must be read and interpreted within the community of God’s people. The Westminster Confession states: “Unto this catholic and visible Church Christ hath given the ministry, oracles, and ordinances of God...” (XXV.3).

While the Reformed Protestant would surely agree that “all sorts of people are bound to read the Word of God apart by themselves,” it is also true that “The Spirit of God maketh the reading, but especially the preaching of the Word” an effectual means of salvation (Westminster Larger Catechism 155-56). As I hope to bring up in subsequent posts, properly interpreting Holy Scripture is anything but child’s play.

Some questions for further discussion, then, include: (1) Is Hauerwas overstating the remedy for the individualism and egalitarianism of the American church? (2) How can Protestant churches instill in believers a due appreciation for the unique gifts and calling of their ministers? (3) If true and lawful ordination is a sacrament as Calvin seems to admit, how can this be put into practice given the unfortunate fact that very few of Protestantism’s denominations actually recognize one another in an official capacity? And lastly, (4) Do Reformed churches need some Protestant version of Rome’s Magisterium in order to avoid functioning individualistically? And if so, on what basis may we demand to be heard by Christians outside the jurisdiction of our churches?

What Do Papal Bulls and Draft Cards Have In Common?

In the Fall 2008 issue of Westminster Seminary California's magazine Evangelium, W. Robert Godfrey opens his article “Calvin and the Bible” by referring to a recent interview of Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia by the late Tim Russert. When asked about the role his faith has on the performance of his duties, Scalia, a Catholic and a conservative, replied that his faith had little effect since his role is to interpret the original intention of the Constitution. After all, it’s not like it’s an “evolving document” or anything.

Godfrey then highlights the irony that he sees in a Catholic Justice insisting that the Constitution must be literally interpreted according to the intent of its original framers, while at the same time his faith demands that the Bible be “treated in the very way that his politically liberal counterparts treat the Constitution.” “The Reformation,” writes Godfrey, “can be seen as a conservative return to the original meaning of the Bible as the only revelation of true religion.”

Among the extra-biblical traditions imposed upon the Church by its Catholic Magisterium, argues Godfrey, are the teachings “that the Mass is a propitiatory sacrifice, that the elements of the Lord’s Supper should be worshiped, and that Mary is a mediator between God and men.” In opposition to this, the 1536 Confession of Faith of the Church of Geneva states in Article One: “We affirm that we desire to follow Scripture alone as our rule of faith and religion… without addition or diminution.”

For my own part, I am not convinced that it’s a good move for us Protestants to charge Catholics with a veiled liberalism when it comes to their treatment of Scripture. After all, with nary a non-liberal denomination older than three-quarters of a century, Protestantism doesn’t exactly have a stellar track record when it comes to guarding the deposit. Furthermore, for this two-kingdoms crusader it does not seem irksome whatsoever for a Supreme Court Justice to have one set of rules governing his civil responsibilities, and another his ecclesiastical ones. And lastly, it is not obvious to me that even a necessary movement like the Protestant Reformation can be dubbed “conser-vative,” what with our burning of papal bulls and whatnot (at least, no more conservative than it was for people in the 1960’s to burn their bras and draft cards).

My advice? If Protestants want to go after the Catholics over their handling of Holy Writ, we need to do it not by assuming Sola Scriptura and then tsk tsk-ing Rome for failing to adopt our standard, but by calling into question both the need for a Magisterium and the faithfulness of that body to perform the duties it claims to be ordained to do.

Reformers, Romans, and Radicals

In his chapter on apostolicity in People and Place, Michael Horton seeks to demonstrate that the locus of ecclesiastical authority is not centered in one person or office, but that "both [Peter and Paul] subjected themselves jointly to the broader assembly [in Acts 15]," and that "if the apostles themselves were corrected by the Word, through mutual admonition, then surely the ordinary ministry can assume no greater authority." Horton then cites Calvin as pointing out that Paul, in his list of officer-gifts given to the church by the risen Christ, mysteriously leaves out the (supposedly) most important one of all:

If he knew a primacy which had a fixed residence, was it not his duty, for the benefit of the whole church, to exhibit one ministerial head placed over all the members, under whose goverment we are collected into one body?

Horton's larger aim to to demonstrate that a covenantal ecclesiology is a via media between a hierarchical model of apostolicity rooted in historical succession on the one hand, and a democratic model based on private revelations or inner experiences on the other.

In fact, argues Horton, the Reformers' argument in the sixteenth century was that both Rome and the Radical Anabaptists appealed to the ongoing revelatory ministry of the Spirit, they just diffeed in whether his voice was to be sought in the Magisterium or in the heart of every sincere believer.

The church is not, properly speaking, the magisterium or the ministerium, but the whole body. Yet as the Pastoral Epistles elaborate, the transferable aspects of the extraordinary apostolic vocation have been entrusted to the ordinary offices of pastors and elders. So we must avoid a legalism that subverts the unique authority of Christ and his Word by addition as well as an antinomian spirit of subtraction.

My question for my Catholic friends, then, is: If you can argue that there is no difference in principle between the Reformers and the Radicals since both reject the magisterium, can we not argue the opposite, namely, that due to their rejection of the sufficiency of Scripture, there is little difference in principle between the Radicals and Rome?

Lo Ammi: Not My [Apostolic] People

In Michael Horton’s chapter on apostolicity in People and Place, the author begins by rooting a church’s true apostolicity in its faithfulness to Scripture.

Ecclesia simper reformanda… means the church is always being reformed, not reforming itself, submitting itself to the judgment of God’s Word and asking anew whether its confession and practice are in accord with Scripture. Only in this way is any church truly apostolic.

Arguing with Lesslie Newbigin that Reformed theology “affirms just as strongly as Rome that the church is visibly incorporated into Christ,” it “resists the tendency to collapse the visible into the invisible church or to regard the visible church simply as an event.” Horton then cites Newbigin:

When, on the other hand, the Church is identified simply with whatever society has continued in unbroken succession from the time of the apostles, then the flesh, not the Spirit, has been made determinative. There is in truth no “extension of the Incarnation,” for His incarnation was in order to make an offering of Himself in the flesh “once for all.” The fruit of that offering, of that casting of a corn of wheat into the earth, is the extension of His risen life to all who are made members of His body in the one Spirit—until He comes again…. The fundamental error into which Catholic doctrines of the Church are prone to fall is… the error of subordinating the eschatological to the historical.

“This,” Horton says, “is precisely what is at stake in recognizing that the church is the creation of the word.”

Rather than the church being wherever the bishop is (per Ignatius), the church is wherever the gospel is:

The gospel is the crietion for apostolicity…. Because there is one faith… there is historical continuity with the apostles…. “The faith that was once for all entrusted to the saints” (Jude 3) is the unbroken thread running from the prophets and apostles to us today.

Again citing Newbigin, Horton argues that

The “fundamental flaw” in making a valid episcopate essential to apostolicity “is that it forgets that the substance of the covenant is pure mercy, and that God retains His sovereign freedom to have mercy upon who He will, and to call ‘No People’ His people when they that are called His people deny their calling by unbelief and sin.”

I find this to be a very interesting argument. Reformed ecclesiology is understood to be a kind of post hoc arrangement rooted in God’s sovereign prerogative to call a “new people” from the ruins of the old, not unlike his grafting into the one vine the wild olive branches who replaced the natural ones.

Thoughts?

Developments, Novelties, or Good and Necessary Consequences?

A couple Sunday evenings ago a church member asked a question about covenant theology: “How long has this stuff been around, anyway?” This got me thinking about the issue of the development of doctrine (you know, that topic that comes up approximately 14 seconds into any dialogue with a Catholic brother or sister).

In a nutshell, doctrinal development refers to the phenomenon of some teaching—such as the Immaculate Conception or the hypostatic union of the divine and human natures in the one Person of Christ—that is affirmed by the church but doesn’t exactly jump off the pages of Scripture and smack you in the face.

Back in August, William G. Witt posted on his blog some thoughts concerning the development of doctrine, arguing for what he calls “Development 1” and “Development 2”:

Development 1 adds nothing to the original content of faith, but rather brings out its necessary implications…. There is another kind of development, however, which I will call “Development 2.” Development 2 is genuinely new development that is not simply the necessary articulation of what is said explicitly in the Scriptures.

Examples of Development 1 include the Nicene doctrine of the Trinity or, to return to my church member above, Reformed covenant theology. All the evidence to put these doctrines together can be found either explicitly or implicitly in the Bible. Doctrines that would fall into the category of Development 2, according to Witt, would be something like the Immaculate Conception (the teaching that Mary was born without original sin). It is a genuine novelty, Witt says, an “entirely new development.”

Now it certainly appears (to this Protestant at least) that there is a real and perhaps categorical difference between a doctrine like the deity of Christ and something like the dogma of papal infallibility. Once formulated, loads of evidence can be adduced for the former, while the evidence for the latter is rather slim (though not altogether non-existent). Some questions that are worth pondering, then, are (1) How would this model account for the church’s decision in Acts 15 to not insist on Gentile circumcision? (2) Whose job is it to determine whether the evidence for a doctrine is explicit, implicit, or non-existent? (3) What should the Protestant do when a Mormon sees less evidence for the Trinity than the rest of us do? Or if a Catholic sees more evidence than we do for the assumption of Mary?

(And I can’t believe I even have to say this, but No, I’m not asking these questions because, gee whiz, I’ve just never thought about these issues before. Just facilitating a little dialogue, people, that’s what blogs are for.)

The Authority of the Gospel and the Hermeneutic of Suspicion

I realize that I claimed to have wrapped up our Sola Scriptura discussion, but it's my blog and I can do whatever I want (so there). But in order to keep my word, immediately after I finish this final word on the subject I will move on to Sola Fide.

One of the most significant ramifications of Galatians 1:8-9 is that there is not only authority that Paul demands, there is authority that makes demands upon him. Whether or not he could have ever preached another gospel, the fact remains that if he did he would have brought the curse he uttered down upon his own head. In other words, Paul was a servant of the gospel, a minister of the Word of Christ.

Now if it is the gospel that creates the church rather than the other way around, then the Protestant Reformation may not be quite as scandalous as Catholics consider it. As the unbroken priestly succession stretching from Aaron to Caiaphas demon-strates, the mere existence of the form does not guarantee that the power of godliness is also present.

Lastly, there is a profound "hermeneutic of suspicion" with respect to the gospel on the part of Catholics that seems, at least to this renegade Protestant, unhelpful. Obviously the Bible has its deep and mysterious passages, but we still maintain that although "All things in Scripture are not alike plain in themselves, nor alike clear unto all," it is still true that

"... those things which are necessary to be known, believed, and observed, for salvation, are so clearly propounded and opened in some place of Scripture or other, that not only the learned, but the unlearned, in a due use of the ordinary means, may attain unto a sufficient understanding of them" (WCF I.7).

Jesus' sheep hear his voice, and this applies not just to those sheep who belong to the Church's Sacred Magisterium. Yes, the church needs ministers to expound the Word, but I still maintain that it is possible, first, for the duly ordained shepherds of the flock (from Rome or Geneva) to go astray, and second, for the sheep to recognize and reject the voice of the stranger.

God Said It, I Believe It, But What Settles It?

As we wrap up the Sola Scriptura installment of our ongoing discussion of Catholicism and Protestantism, I beg your indulgence (ahem) as I post something a bit longer than usual (my normal goal is for the entire text of each post to fit on your screen at once). That won’t happen with this one. Some of you have referred to my recent performance as devil’s advocate for Rome as being truly worthy of an Academy Award nomination (and you haven’t all meant it as a compliment either, but have half-convinced yourselves that I have taken up the rite of French-kissing my new statue of Joseph Ratzinger). I offer no apology, though. Who better to welcome the tough questions than the Calvinist, and what better forum to ask them than a blog? (Insert sarcastic-looking emoticon here.)

Before I weigh in directly I want to thank all of the Catholics who have braved these Protestant, two-kingdoms waters over the past couple weeks (especially Bryan Cross, Tim Troutman, Oso Famoso [a.k.a. Sean], Louisiana Catholic, Thos, and Peter Sean Bradley). I was impressed that, for the most part, this dialogue has been charitable and honest, producing more light than it did heat. As we turn our attention to Sola Fide on Monday, I trust the same peaceableness and humility will be demonstrated from both sides.

To cut to the chase, I have come to doubt whether “Sola Scriptura” is a helpful way to describe the Reformed position concerning the role that the Bible plays in the life of the Christian individual and the life of the church. My reasons are as follows: First, Reformed Christians believe that the Bible is the church’s book and must be interpreted in conjunction with, and not in isolation from, our forefathers in the faith as well as those who have authority over us presently. Consider these two passages from the Westminster Confession of Faith:

The authority of the holy Scripture, for which it ought to be believed and obeyed, dependeth not upon the testimony of any man or Church, but wholly upon God (who is truth itself), the Author thereof; and therefore it is to be received, because it is the Word of God (I.4).

It belongeth to synods and councils, ministerially, to determine controversies of faith… and authoritatively to determine the same: which decrees and determinations, if consonant to the Word of God, are to be received with reverence and submission, not only for their agreement with the Word, but also for the power whereby they are made, as being an ordinance of God, appointed thereunto in his Word (XXXI.3).

Now, while a Catholic may scoff at these statements for several reasons, an evangelical would not simply roll his eyes, he would wag his fundamentalist finger in our face and accuse us of denying the sole authority of the Bible. And you know what? He is right, we do deny the sole authority of Scripture, as do all heirs of the Reformation.

A second reason why the language of “Sola Scriptura,” when weighed in the balance of our Reformed confessions and catechisms, is found wanting is that we have always placed a higher premium on the believer’s hearing the preached Word than upon his own personal Bible reading. Again, the Westminster Standards:

Question: How is the Word made effectual to salvation?

Answer: The Spirit of God maketh the reading, but especially the preaching of the Word, an effectual means of enlightening, convincing, and humbling sinners; of driving them out of themselves, and drawing them unto Christ; of conforming them to his image, and subduing them to his will; of strengthening them against temptations and corruptions; of building them up in grace, and establishing their hearts in holiness and comfort through faith unto salvation (Westminster Larger Catechism Q/A 155).

Unto this catholic and visible Church, Christ hath given the ministry, oracles, and ordinances of God, for the gathering and perfecting of the saints, in this life, to the end of the world; and doth by his own presence and Spirit, according to his promise, make them effectual thereunto (XXV.3).

Notice that preaching is exalted above quiet times, and that the means of grace which perfect the saints in this life unto the end of the world are given to the church, not to the individual. Under the Heading “The Preaching of the Word of God is the Word of God,” the Second Helvetic Confession teaches:

Wherefore when this Word of God is now preached in the church by preachers lawfully called, we believe that the very Word of God is proclaimed, and received by the faithful; and that neither any other Word of God is to be invented nor is to be expected from heaven: and that now the Word itself which is preached is to be regarded, not the minister that preaches; for even if he be evil and a sinner, nevertheless the Word of God remains still true and good.

It would obviously be anachronistic to insist that believers during the ministry of Clement of Rome listened to his preaching with leather-bound, thumb-indexed versions of the New Geneva Study Bible in their laps. Unless the Lord tarries another thousand years, the majority of saints in heaven will have never owned a Bible, but learned the gospel from duly ordained ministers gifted to the church by the risen Christ (Ephesians 4:11-12).

The third and final reason why “Sola Scriptura” in an unhelpful term is rooted in the Reformation’s doctrine of the two kingdoms. The synod or the council, we are told in Westminster Confession XXXI.5, is not to opine on any matter that is not specifically ecclesiastical, nor may it “intermeddle” in civil affairs. The obvious reason for this is that the Bible is not intended—and is therefore not sufficient—to address issues such as how a bill should become a law or whether pitchers should be made to bat in the American League.

The Bible, therefore, is our primary authority on matter concerning religion, but it is not our only authority.

What is the nature, then, of these secondary sources of authority such as preachers and synods? Ecclesiastical councils, argues Calvin, should “have the majesty that is their due; yet in the meantime Scripture would stand out in the higher place, with everything subject to its standard.” He writes:

However it may be, we cannot otherwise distinguish between councils that are contradictory and discordant, which have been many, unless we weigh them all in the balance of all men and angels, that is, the Word of the Lord (Institutes 4.9.9).

Does this, as our Catholic friends insist, leave us every bit as adrift in the sea of individualism as the evangelicals are, having no more hope of safe harbor than they?

Well on one level it is true: though we decry it with no small measure of smugness, we must admit if we’re honest that the Reformed are less afraid of individualism than Catholics are (although we all look alike to the evangelical). But when we have a properly hierarchical understanding of divine authority, this becomes less irksome (or at least it should). Consider Paul’s twofold approach with the Galatians who were so quickly turning away from the gospel of grace: first, he spends a chapter and a half touting his credentials as an apostle whose authority is to be taken seriously. But he doesn’t stop writing once his credibility is established, he actually goes on and seeks to convince the Galatians that his gospel is the authentic, not the counterfeit, one.

Why would a duly ordained apostle with the power to open and shut heaven stoop to the level of trying to prove to a bunch of former pagans that his message is not a sham?

Well, if the sole question concerns the who, as Rome claims, then it would seem that Paul spilled his ink in vain. After all, he’s Paul for crying out loud, isn’t that enough of a reason to believe him? As I highlighted above, church authority is indeed “an ordinance of God,” but only insofar as it conforms to the norma normans non normata, which is Scripture. In other words, the who, if he is a duly ordained who, is to be heeded as the very spokesman of Christ himself. But the ultimate authority of the who is the what, meaning that even the ambassador is bound by his treaty, even the judge is a servant of the law, and even the herald of the divine gospel is, when all is said and done, but a minister of the Word. Hence the bold apostle’s solemn oath at the beginning of this epistle:

I am astonished that you are so quickly deserting him who called you in the grace of Christ and are turning to a different gospel—not that there is another one, but there are some who trouble you and want to distort the gospel of Christ. But even if we or an angel from heaven should preach to you a gospel contrary to the one we preached to you, let him be accursed. As we have said before, so now I say again: If anyone is preaching to you a gospel contrary to the one you received, let him be accursed (Galatians 1:6-9).

Paul’s willingness to subjugate himself to the true gospel, his potential anathematizing of the angels of heaven who preach a false one, and, perhaps most startlingly, his solemnly charging his own hearers with the responsibility to know the difference, all demonstrate that no authority in heaven or on earth has the power to tinker with, modify, take away from, or add to the glorious gospel of the blessed God.

In conclusion, I have been tremendously challenged by the Catholic position and have actually grown to appreciate it and look upon it with a measure of wonder. Part of me wishes it were true that the church of the apostles had continued on in an unbroken succession of leadership and doctrinal fidelity from that day to this. But at the end of the day I, along with millions and millions of other Christians over the past five centuries, believe that the what, somewhere along the way, got swallowed by the who. In a word, the message of salvation by grace alone through faith alone because of Christ alone was compromised, only to be recovered in the sixteenth century by men who recognized, sometimes at the cost of their own lives, that the gospel trumps popes, the gospel trumps councils, and that the true church of Christ only exists where the grace of God is preached without mixture or dilution.

Setting that issue aside (at least until next week), I believe that the passion for unity I have seen on the part of the Catholics I have met is both commendable and humbling. For my own part, I wish that every Reformed and Presbyterian denomination, both here and abroad, would come together under the banner of a common confession of faith to which all ministers and members would strictly subscribe, even if a fresh one needs to be drafted for the occasion. And however miserably we may fall short of it, I do wish we Protestants, together with all believers, would grow ever closer to fulfilling the wish of our Savior, expressed on the eve of his betrayal:

“… that they may all be one, just as you, Father, are in me, and I in you, that they also may be in us, so that the world may believe that you have sent me” (John 17:21).

Where in the World is the Church? - Part II: The Visible Church

In our last post we looked at the Protestant doctrine of the Invisible Church, noting that the Reformed understanding of ecclesiastical authority either gives rise to, or emerges from, its view that the church is primarily invisible.

Now if it is true of Geneva that church authority is bound up in whether that church is visible or invisible, it is even more profoundly true of Rome. You see, we Protestants could actually withstand a slight tweaking of our ecclesiology while still maintaining our view of authority, but the Catholic view of authority is so utterly and absolutely dependent on the visible nature of the church, together with its insistence upon unbroken, apostolic succession, that any modification would be a disaster of epic proportions.

Please do not miss this crucial point. Rome's entire case for why they alone have the authority to speak in Christ's Name hangs upon the single issue of apostolic succession, and, arguing in the opposite direction, if there is a single break in the chain of succession from Simon bar-Jonah to Joseph Ratzinger (Pope Benedict XVI), then any reason to give the slightest heed to anything the Catholic Church says, according to her own testimony, immediately vanishes (at which point she, like her separated brethren, must stand or fall on the faithfulness of her exegesis alone). Or to put it more simply, Sola Scriptura would be true....

In a word, the visibility of the church is for Rome the true articulus stantis et cadentis ecclesiae. And if on this point she stands, she truly may stand proudly. But if she falls, how great will be her fall!

Not being anything even remotely close to a patristics expert, I will defer to those here at De Regnis Duobus who, from either side, have weighed in on this issue. From the Catholic side we have heard it proclaimed with all certitude that the list of Roman Bishops, provided by St. Irenaeus of Lyons, is completely and historically accurate: Peter appointed Linus, who appointed Cletus, who appointed Clement, who appointed Evaristus, who appointed Alexander, who appointed Sixtus, who appointed Telesphorus, who appointed Hyginus, who appointed Pius, who appointed Anicetus, who appointed Soter, who appointed Eleutherius, who served as bishop of Rome at the time of Irenaeus's death.

But we have also heard from the Protestant side that the primacy of the Roman bishoprick was a matter of political and practical expediency that did not manifest itself until the latter half of the second century, meaning that no Christian in Rome in, say, 140 AD would have had a clue about the supposed sacred chair of Pope St. Peter. Furthermore, we have heard that the need for unbroken succession in order to establish Rome's control over the church was felt so accutely that the list of bishops was fabricated in order to secure such control.

So who's right?

Where in the World is the Church? - Part I: The Invisible Church

As I have been hinting at, whether one adopts a Catholic or Protestant view of ecclesiastical authority is largely contingent upon whether he sees the church as primarily visible or invisible. In other words, before you figure out what the church can say, you first must determine who she is.

"The idea of an infallible and hierarchical Church," writes Berkhof,

"... found no favor with Luther. He regarded the Church as the spiritual communion of those who believe in Christ.... He maintained the unity of the Church, but distinguished two aspects of it, the one visible and the other invisible.... The invisible Church becomes visible, not by the rule of bishops and cardinals, nor in the headship of the Pope, but by the pure administration of the Word and of the sacraments."

In the words of the Westminster Confession of Faith, the invisible church

"... consists of the whole number of the elect, that have been, are, or shall be gathered into one, under Christ the head thereof; and is the spouse, the body, the fullness of Him that filleth all in all."

Concerning the relation of the invisible church to the visible, the Confession goes on to say that:

"This [invisible] catholic Church hath been sometimes more, sometimes less, visible. And particular Churches, which are members thereof, are more or less pure, according as the doctrine of the gospel is taught and embraced, ordinances administered, and public worship performed more or less purely in them" (XXV.1, 4).

The ensuing dialogue, of course, will look like this:

Catholic: "If the 'Church' exists wherever the Word is rightly preached and the sacraments are properly administered, who determines whether those things are happening?"

Protestant: "The Holy Spirit speaking through the Scriptures."

Catholic: "And who determines what it is that the Holy Spirit, through the Scriptures, is saying?"

Protestant: "The sheep who hear his voice."

Catholic: "Who, then, are the sheep?"

Protestant: "Those who gather to hear the Word rightly preached and the sacraments properly administered."

Is there any way off this merry-go-round?

The Church: What She Is, and How She Acts

By the middle of the second cent-ury, each local Christian church was led by a single bishop whose ministry was considered to carry apostolic authority. On his way to martyrdom in Rome in 110, Ignatius, bishop of Antioch, wrote to the church in Tralles:

"... when you obey the bishop as if he were Christ Jesus, you are (as I see it) living not in a merely human fashion, but in Jesus Christ's way.... It is essential, therefore, to act in no way without the bishop, just as you are doing."

And to the church in Smyrna he wrote:

"You should all follow the bishops as Jesus Christ did the Father.... Where the bishop is present, there let the congregation gather, just as where Jesus Christ is, there is the Catholic Church.... Whatever [the bishop] approves pleases God as well."

Whether they were correct in their assessment or not, it appears that the early post-apostolic Christians thought that their bishops carried the same authority that the original apostles held: If they forgave sins, those sins were forgiven; if a thing was bound on earth, it was bound in heaven.

Now for this to "work," of course, it had to be determined whether a so-called bishop was in fact duly ordained through an unbroken succession reaching back to the apostles themselves. Unlike in movements such as Calvary Chapel in our own day, in which ordination is largely a logistical exercise in paperwork (for kicks, I still have my Calvary ordination card in my wallet, complete with Chuck Smith's signature), ordination in the early church was a serious matter. The reason for this was bound up in their belief in the church's apostolicity and catholicity. When a bishop or group of bishops spoke in an official capacity, their word was considered infallible, for "he who hears you hears me," Jesus had promised.

What drives the Catholic view of authority, as well as the Protestant one, is their respective understandings of what the church actually is. Is it an invisible entity with various local expressions, or did Jesus actually found a visible, institutionally-united church that could be pointed to with a "Lo! It is here," or "Behold, it is there"?

How we answer this question will determine how we answer a score of others, as I hope to demonstrate in my next couple posts.

Paul, Timothy, and the Nature of Post-Apostolic Authority

The first step in understanding the Catholic view of authority focuses on Peter and his unique leadership role among Jesus' disciples, as we saw in Friday's post. But what comes next?

In John 20:21-23 we read that Jesus said to his disciples, "Even as the Father sent me, so I send you." He then breathed on them and said, "Receive the Holy Spirit. If you forgive the sins of anyone, they are forgiven. If you withhold forgiveness from anyone, it is withheld." As in all four gospels, Jesus here sends the apostles forth with his commission and the authority to carry it out.

As time went on the possibility became ever more likely that the apostles would die before Christ returned in glory, meaning that permanent offices would need to be established in the churches. We see both in Acts and the epistles, therefore, the emergence of bishops and deacons who would serve the church after the apostles passed from the scene.

The principle of passing on the God-given deposit from inspired apostles to others is demonsrated is such passages as: "Now I praise you, brethren, that you... keep the traditions just as I delivered them to you" (I Cor. 11:2); "Therefore, brethren, stand fast and hold the traditions which you were taught, whether by word or our epistle" (II Thess. 2:15); "Withdraw from every brother who walks disorderly and not according to the tradition which he received from us" (II Thess. 3:6); "By the Holy Spirit who dwells within us, guard the good deposit entrusted to you" (II Tim. 1:14); "What you have heard from me in the presence of many witnesses entrust to faithful men who will be able to teach others also" (II Tim. 2:2).

It was the bishops specifically who were ordained by the laying on of hands to the office of ministry of the Word: "Fan into flame the gift of God, which is in you through the laying on of my hands" (II Tim. 1:6); "Do not neglect the gift you have, which was given you by prophecy when the council of elders laid their hands on you" (I Tim. 4:14); "For a bishop, as God's steward, must be above reproach.... He must hold firm to the trustworthy word as taught, so that he may be able to give instruction in sound doctrine and also to rebuke those who contradict it" (Tit. 1:7, 9).

As I noted in Friday's post about the New Testament's evidence concerning the preeminence of Peter, so here, there is nothing particularly objectionable about any of this. The point at which the disagreement between the Catholic and Protestant does begin to take shape, however, is when we ask the question, "What was the nature of that authority that the first generation of post-apostolic bishops carried?"

We know that the apostles' authority was conveyed both in word and in writing, by preaching and epistle. We also know that non-apostolic elders were involved in the Jerusalem Council, the conclusions of which were binding upon all believers (Acts 15:2, 28). Must we then conclude that men like Timothy and his successors carried genuine apostolic authority? Or can we insist that with the death of the apostles and cessation of the revelatory gifts, all extra-biblical authority took on a different, derivative character?

And regardless of which view we take, can we prove it?

The Church's (Petrine?) Apostolicity

Over at Principium Unitatis, Bryan Cross is proposing an interesting avenue for fostering unity among Catholics and Protestants. Since, he acknowledges, the tendency of both sides is to question-beg (to assume what we should be trying to prove), the only realistic option is to go back far enough in history until we come to a time when we were both on the same team. "To the fathers!" he cries.

Let's go back a bit further.

What does the Nicene Creed mean when it affirms that the church is "one, holy, catholic, and apostolic?" Catholics maintain that apostolicity refers to the church's being built on the foundation of the apostles, and further, that it exercises the authority that Christ gave them.

To "trace the matter," we begin with Jesus' training of the twelve and giving them authority to teach, preach, heal, and administer the sacraments. Though this authority was given to them all, it was focused more specifically on the apostle Peter. Some arguments that Catholics put forth to demonstrate Peter's primacy are: (1) Peter often speaks for the twelve in the Gospels, especially in climactic moments (Mark 8:29; Matt. 18:21; Luke 12:41; John 6:67ff); (2) Peter is often central in many dramatic Gospel accounts (Matt. 14:28-32; Luke 5:1ff; Mark 10:28; Matt. 17:24ff); (3) Peter is always named first in the Synoptic lists of disciples (Mark 3:16-19; Matt. 10:1-4; Luke 6:12-16; Acts 1:13). Sometimes the disciples are referred to as "Peter and his companions" (Mark 1:36; Luke 9:32; Mark 16:7); (4) John waited for Peter at the tomb of Jesus and allowed him to enter first (John 20:3-8); (5) Jesus singled out Peter as the shepherd of his people (John 21:15-17); (6) Paul mentions Peter first among those who saw the resurrected Christ (I Cor. 15:5). Furthermore, the book of Acts reinforces Peter's primacy among the other apostles.

Jesus had much to say about Peter's unique role as well. It was Peter that Jesus said Satan desired to sift as wheat, "but I have prayed for you," Jesus assures him. "When you have turned again, strengthen your brethren" (Luke 22:31-32). In John's Gospel, It is Peter who is told specifically to nurture and feed Jesus' sheep (21:15-19). And of course, there is Christ's famous statement that Peter is to be called rock, "for on this rock I will build my church" (Matt. 16:18-19, both occurrances of "rock" are identical [kepha] in the Aramaic which Jesus spoke).

As Protestants, there is nothing we really need to fear by acknowledging this evidence as weighty. But as we "trace the matter" further and discuss whether Peter had a successor who had a successor, then the (ahem) you-know-what starts to hit the you-know-what, so hang on to your seats....

"No Justification Without Representation!"

I have a question for my Catholic Readers (with some preamble to set it up):

As I understand your position, the only hope for unity and genuine ecumenical progress is for us Protestants to return to Rome. The reason for this is that, according to you, the Reformation began with rebellion against lawful ecclesiastical power, and regardless of how long our subsequent history or how well-ordered our subsequent polity may be, there is no statute of limitations on apostasy. To put the matter simply, as long as the prodigal remains outside his father's house he is just that, a prodigal. Even if his pig-sty experience evolves into a great empire in which he becomes a mogul in the pork industry (even "the Sausage King of Chicago"), his success began with unlawful division, and this being the case, no amount of years can transform what is illegitimate into something legitimate.

My question, then, is this: What do you make of the United States of America? If the case can be made that the beginnings of this country were rooted in rebellion against lawful power (i.e., the Crown, an authority that, while not ecclesiastical but civil, is nonetheless divinely instituted), then it would seem to follow that, regardless of how many years transpire or how powerful we as a nation become, our only hope of gaining legitimacy would be by submitting ourselves once again to the United Kingdom against which we rebelled (over issues, I might add, much less important than those that compelled Luther and Calvin to break from Rome).

Since I honestly have no idea how tis question will be answered, I offer it merely in humble curiosity and not as some "knock-down, drag-out" zinger.

So what gives, Catholics? Are the rules different for civil power than they are for ecclesiastical, and if so, why? And if not, is not our Protestant nation even less legitimate than our Protestant churches?

Would a Nicene Creed With Any Other Copyright Date Smell As Orthodox?

The "God-Fearin' Fiddler" has asked a series of provocative questions over at his blog, Army of Martyrs. The topic is the development of doctrine, and the Council of Nicaea's doctrine of the Trinity is being used as paradigmatic of the phenomenon as a whole.

The first point The Fiddler makes concerns the doctrine of the Trinity itself, and why we believe it. We do not believe it, he argues, because it is clearly taught in Scripture or because the post-apostolic fathers held to it uniformly (for it isn't, and they didn't). We believe it because the church lent to it her living and authoritative voice.

The Fiddler goes on to ask whether we would still believe in the Trinity if the Council of Nicaea had not been called until a few hundred years after it actually was convened. What about a thousand years later?

Building on point #2, the question arises: If the church can legitimately and authoritatively formulate the doctrine of the Trinity in 325, why can't it, with equal legitimacy and authority, formulate the doctrine of the Immaculate Conception in 1854? If there is an historical point after which all conciliar decrees become non-binding, when is it, and who determines it?

The Fiddler quotes N.T. Wright to the effect that if the doctrine of the Trinity hadn't developed organically, the church would have had to invent it in order to combat the Arian heresy. If that is the case, who's to say that the same rationale couldn't have been in play in order for the church to combat the errors of Protestantism at Trent?

Lastly, we are told that we do not have the right nor the luxury of picking and choosing with which ecumenical councils, and with which decrees of those councils, we choose to agree and submit ourselves. We either respect tradition or we do not, meaning that if some of the ecumenical councils are authoritative then they all are, and if one of them isn't, then none of them are.

Now the Reformed response to all this is to insist that we adhere and submit to the ecumenical councils insofar as their decrees are in accord with Scripture (the latter of which is ultimately authoritative, while the former are only penultimately so). But whose interpretation of Scripture? And if we believe them because they're biblical, then why not just read the Bible and save ourselves the hassle?

In short, must Nicaea bow down before me?