From: gar@cltr.uq.oz.au (Greg Restall)
Subject: Re: What is fundamentalism
Organization: Centre for Language Teaching and Research, Uni of Queensland, AUSTRALIA.
Date: Tue, 18 Aug 1992 05:58:46 GMT

boutland@monu1.cc.monash.edu.au (Mr J Boutland) writes:

*lesley@pleasanton.EBay.Sun.COM (Lesley Smith - Test Engineering) writes:
*
*
*>	To answer Helen Lee's question..What is fundamentalism ???.	
*>	It's...Holding the bible to the sole historical and prophtic authority.
*
*May I ask how this position is justified ?

I don't feel very comfortable with this as a definition of
fundamentalism --- I don't think it's very close to the way
the word is used now, or when it was introduced early this
century.  However, let's ignore that for the sake of discussion.

How would you justify the position that the Bible is the sole
historical and prophetic authority?  Good question.  I'll pass
on the first, for I don't think fundamentalists believe that, 
and its crazy, and not worth defending.  

As to the claim that the Bible is the sole prophetic authority, 
we're on much safer ground.  Let's take "prophetic" to mean
"speaking the words of God" (as "prophetic" meant in the times
of the Hebrew Scriptures).  Then to claim that the Bible is the
sole prophetic authority is to say that the Bible is the only 
present place where we have authoritative access to the words
of God.  

This can be argued for.  Firstly the positive side: Jesus took
the words of his Bible (the Hebrew Scriptures) to be God's words.
There's enough content in the Gospels to establish that, I think.
Secondly, Jesus took his own words to be God's words (or, at
least as authoritative as God's words) see the Sermon on the
Mount for one example.  Jesus also made provision for the apostles
to continue his own teaching, with the same authority.  (See the
Upper Room discourse in John for an example of this.)  So the 
apostolic teaching of the early church is also authoritative.

So, granted that Jesus is the Lord of the Universe, and that 
the Gospels are a halfway-decent account of his beliefs, we 
can get some reasonable evidence to the conclusion that both
the Hebrew Scriptures and the New Testament are authoritative
in this sense.  (Given that the NT truly reflects the apostolic
teaching of the early church -- which can be defended.) 

Of course, if you don't grant that Jesus has this kind of
authority, or if you think the Gospels don't paint the 
portrait I've described, you're going to have to get yourself
another argument to this conclusion.  I for one will stand by it.

Note that the authority of the Bible is `derived'.  I take 
this to be a good thing.  It is predicated on Jesus' authority,
not vice-versa.  I'm a Christian, and not a `Bibleian'.  
 
Now, why would you take there to be no other authoritative
access to God's words?  Good question.  My own sketch at an
answer is this: the `spirits' have to be tested with regard
to what they say about Jesus.  (Take 1 John 4:1-3 as an 
example.)  In other words, any teaching will only be from
God to the extend that it agrees with the Gospel of Jesus.
So, its authority is in some way subordinate to that of 
the Scriptures, which are our fundamental means of access
to facts about Jesus.  I'm a bit sketchy here, as I haven't
really thought this one over.  However, my feeling is that 
something like this might be made to work.

Anyway, this is how I'll defend the claim that the Bible
is the sole prophetic authority (though I wouldn't put
it that way myself).  

More important than this is the question: if this is all
true, what will you do about it?

Best wishes,

Greg Restall

(Who is concerned to point out that these discussions aren't
 purely `academic' [in the usual sense of that word].)


--
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Greg Restall      | Philosophy Department, University of Queensland. 
gar@cltr.uq.oz.au | Queensland, 4072.  Australia.
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                       The word `dog' does not bite.   William James
Newsgroups: aus.religion