From: mangoe@cs.umd.edu (Charley Wingate)
Newsgroups: soc.religion.christian
Subject: Re: Theonomy vs. autonomy
Date: 25 Jan 93 04:19:54 GMT

Tom Albrecht writes:

>Seriously, the answer to your question depends upon how you answer another
>(related) question:  If we don't use the explicit Law-Word of God as the
>standard for determining right and wrong (and punishment) then what
>standard shall we use?  Human reason?  Some other religious standard (say,
>the Koran)?  Majority rule?

Well, in your church (presby, as I recall) it's what a majority of
representatives (elders) say the word-of-God says.  In the RC church, it's
what the church has worked out that the w-o-G say over the years.

We are sinful creatures-- and from an empirical perspective, one can observe
sin by seeing that people not only make mistakes in moral thinking, they do
not follow the moral rules which they hold to be true.  We as christians
understand this to be both cause and effect of our fundamental disobedience
to God.

As sinful creatures, therefore, it is unreasonable to suggest that we can
look to scripture and expect to find "unambiguous" answers-- meaning that on
should expect disagreements.  And again, observation shows that the
disagreement is the norm.  To take a cogent example, there's the matter of
how one should read laws in the Torah as applying to christian behavior.  As
I read scripture, it is clear that for me, a gentile, these laws do not
directly apply, that is, just because I see a law there doesn't mean it
applies to me.  This doctrine of interpretation can be read directly out of
Acts 16.  But I find that a lot of conservative, "bible-believing" christians
interpret the old Law as if some or all of it DID apply-- not because the
same rules are implied by the new Law, but because they are written in the
Torah.

And this is potentially a fairly innocuous disagreement.  More serious is
the realtionship between the Law as given to us by Jesus and the rules given
to us from Paul.  What Jesus says invites and even demands an intuitive,
flexible approach; Paul's writings set down rules.  The relationship between
the two is not obvious and not set down in scripture, and therefore, there
is a lot of backing and forthing on Paul where people's innate sense of
justice cuts across the lines he draws.  This is especially so when the
interpretation of certain passages (most notoriously, those concerning the
positions of women within the church), as given to us by our forefathers,
all too easily allow what many see as unjust behavior-- a situation which,
insofar as it exists, goes right back to sin's everpresent corruption of our
lives.

I'm not saying that the situation is open to total freedom; I'm saying that
it is a difficult situation.  When one lines up forty backwoods radical
protestant preachers and find that they all will tell you different versions
of what the word-of-God says right-there-on-the-page, one has the
opportunity to consider the true breadth of the problem.
-- 
C. Wingate        + "The peace of God, it is no peace,
                  +    but strife closed in the sod.
mangoe@cs.umd.edu +  Yet, brothers, pray for but one thing:
tove!mangoe       +    the marv'lous peace of God."