Paul's Letter to the Galatians and the Struggle for Doctrinal Purity

[Pudgy]

if you’re going to quote someone, you should put what they actually said in quotation marks at the beginning, and at the end, and reference who it was that was speaking.

This was not done for several of the above posts, and it’s very ambiguous as to who said what, and whether or not it was  a quote, a paraphrase, or someone’s opinion.

 

[Pudgy]

Two entirely separate issues.

[Pudgy]

…. this is The Year 2023.

All of the above has less relevance than an 85 year old Hippie arguing about Woodstock.

 

[Juan Rivera]

 

On 10/26/2023 at 2:07 PM, Many Miles said:

Over the years of its existence the society has suffered some pretty horrendous schisms, which understandably birthed fear of schism. For example, in the late 1920s the number of persons associating with the society dropped by about 80 percent. That will leave a wound to be felt for quite awhile. Resulting fear has, in my view, led to a position that confuses uniformity with unity.

@Many Miles @JW Insider I'm hesitant with any explanation that uses or is very close to some type of deconstruction by way of psychological analysis (fear of schism). I think we can simply observe the factors or reasons(theological) the Congregation has already given/offers/claims to be the cause. I lean in this case towards a philosophical error of judgment.🙏

I'm just going to use the same term (uniformity) with a different definition. I agree that the unity to which Christ calls us in John 17 is not an all encompassing unity that includes or conflates within itself evil and sin. Rather, is a unity in faith, worship and hierarchy. 

I'm sure you would agree that uniformity is not bad when it's uniformity in the one faith. In that case it's actually something beautiful (Ephesians 4:5, 1 Corinthians 1:10) It seems your concern is with the extreme of absolute uniformity. I'm concerned about the other extreme, which is the absence of a shared faith. So, we are both interested in reaching a middle position (diversity within unity), where the teachings of the organization set the boundaries for our unity, providing a framework within which we can respectfully explore different understandings of our faith. In other words, that what the Congregation requires be only uniformity of truth. 

On 10/26/2023 at 2:07 PM, Many Miles said:

I think the organization (which I grew up calling the society) operates under an unstated premise that it's okay to hold divergent views so long as you don't attempt to create schism....

Resulting fear has, in my view, led to a position that confuses uniformity with unity. The society wants every person who submits to it to be uniform in belief, including when a teaching or teachings change. Uniformity of people is not unity of people, and eventually it grinds people down. Unity of people is people who maintain a common cause despite having differences, and it raises people up. Uniformity of people is people who maintain a common cause because they have no differences. But humans always have differences. We are all unique. The uniformity created by the society is an outcome of tools of conformity. But it still remains the case that humans are unique and will always have differences. The society knows this. In the end, unity can only thrive when its comprised of people who hold common cause despite their differences.

You reminded me of one of Pope's Francis Homily's in 2014: 

"It is true that the Holy Spirit brings forth different charisms in the Church, which at first glance, may seem to create disorder. Under his guidance, however, they constitute an immense richness, because the Holy Spirit is the Spirit of unity, which is not the same thing as uniformity. Only the Holy Spirit is able to kindle diversity, multiplicity and, at the same time, bring about unity. When we try to create diversity, but are closed within our own particular and exclusive ways of seeing things, we create division. When we try to create unity through our own human designs, we end up with uniformity and homogenization. If we let ourselves be led by the Spirit, however, richness, variety and diversity will never create conflict, because the Spirit spurs us to experience variety in the communion of the Church."

On 10/26/2023 at 2:07 PM, Many Miles said:

One thing I wish our contemporary governing body would do is to express a litmus test of themselves for sake of those who they ask obedience from. The early Christian leaders offered a means by which those they asked obedience from to legitimately say, in effect, "No, I'm not obeying that", and it was okay to do so. In the opening of the letter to Galatia such a litmus test was put in writing for all to see. That was a pretty bold thing to put out there for early Christians. It let them know their obedience did not require them to accept and promote something just because they were told to do so. What was said to Galatia served the purpose of falsifiability. It was a litmus test, and it was spelled out and in writing. Among early Christians, there was unity not because everyone agreed on everything. There was unity because despite differences they might have and share they were still united in a common cause to follow Christ and share the good news of his kingdom rule sure to come.

Getting back to the point, today's governing body knows perfectly well they are fallible, but they still want JWs to unite around common cause despite that fallibility. What they do not want is anyone to openly express disagreement so that it causes a schism. That's a fine line to walk, but there it is.

I am wondering what you think the sort of unity Christ prays (in John 17) His followers would have, would look like? I mean, what is the nature of that unity Christ wants His Congregation to have? Is it doctrinal agreement? Only on essentials? How are those determined?  Does it include institutional unity? That's the first set of questions. How is that first set of questions even to be answered? By consensus? Majority vote? Who gets to participate and vote? Who gets to supervise and moderate and make the rules? What would be necessary even for there to be an agreement about how to answer that first set of questions? And if by long and knock down public debate we finally did somehow manage to come to an agreement regarding the answers to those questions, how would we possibly go about achieving that unity (whatever the sort of unity is that we agreed that Christ wants His Congregation to have)? Reading through this whole discussion, it seems to me that if Christ intended His Congregation to be one (so unified that it would testify to the world that the Father sent the Son), then He would not have left us in a kind of each man does what is right in his own eyes situation. He would not have left the unity of His Bride up to the power of combox arguments to bring unity out of the chaos of sheep without a shepherd. The whole discussion above is evidence of the impotence of such arguments. Without a unified ecclesial authority established by Christ, the prospects for even getting some sort of robust visible unity off the ground, let alone preserving it till Christ returns, look extremely bleak! So either there is no point striving for robust visible unity (and we can gloss John 17 in some watered-down way), or the question is not, is it morally wrong to associate oneself with a Christian body that teaches anything whatsoever that is doctrinally false?  but rather, where is the Congregation that Christ established, and what does it have to say about all these questions?

I think you alluded to the diversity without divisions point,  on this post:

On 11/8/2023 at 5:58 PM, Many Miles said:

Your familiar with what internally we term "conscience matters". These are of things that are left to each person to decide without organized communal repercussion because different ones among us may legitimately hold different views on the same subject. Sometimes these different views might stem from different interpretations of information.

I'm familiar with the old principle/quote "In essentials unity, in non-essentials freedom, in all things love". The problem arises once we get to what is the basis/criteria for distinguishing between schisms and heresies. If there is no ground for distinction, this type of unity collapses into individualism and/or arbitrarily sets up a standard of unity (agreement on a indeterminate set of doctrinal propositions) and with finding a lowest common denominator minimalism like the Mere Christianity position or (like Greg Stafford's three fundamentals of the faith) as the ground for unity.

Either way, the result is a unity/uniformity, but it is only a uniformity of like minded individuals, which is not a criterion that establishes that what is believed by the like minded individuals is, in fact, the truth. Uniformity of belief could mean nothing more than a bunch of like minded individuals confess what is false teachings.

On 11/5/2023 at 10:56 PM, Many Miles said:

Real unity is folks holding common cause despite differences. Unity is not to be confused with uniformity.

You reminded me of previous comment by @TrueTomHarley which made me consider the difference between the unity of a political party, and the unity of a family. The political party is united by a shared set of beliefs, planks in a platform. When the party’s position shifts sufficiently, or the individual voter shifts positions, the voter just shifts parties because the unity is that of shared beliefs. It is not a material unity like family (united by blood) but more like a formal unity.

Let me follow up tonight with the first comment of this thread below:

On 10/28/2023 at 10:24 PM, Many Miles said:

The real issue to me is about the limit of obedience.

Paul was pretty straightforward. In essence he said Christian obedience to those taking the lead ended where those taking the lead departed from what had been taught and accepted. Paul admitted that obedience had a rightful limit, and he laid down a litmus test for it. 

Of course, back then there were supernatural evidences available to corroborate whose teaching had merit, and departure from those teachings was the litmus test. 

Today, to our knowledge, there are no supernatural evidences corroborating whose teaching to accept. What we have is something that was only building amongst early Christians. We have the Bible. So today the litmus test should be 1) what the Bible expressly states, and 2) what can be deduced from what the Bible says with a conclusion that is subject to known conventions of logical construction (i.e., a demonstrably sound conclusion)

To be blunt, 1) if a teaching is found to be not expressly stated in biblical text, or 2) if a teaching is not a demonstrably sound conclusion (or, worse, a refuted conclusion), then no Christian should be bound to obey that teaching. Such teachings should be left to accept or ignore based on personal conscience.

[Many Miles]

39 minutes ago, Juan Rivera said:

I am wondering what you think the sort of unity Christ prays (in John 17) His followers would have, would look like?

The same follower of Jesus that took time to put Jesus' prayer to paper also took time later on to comment about the unity of which you inquire.

At the very end of his first epistle, John wrote "But we know that the Son of God has come, and he has given us intellectual capacity that we may gain the knowledge of the true one. And we are in union with the true one, by means of his Son Jesus Christ."

God gave us His written word. Today we call it "the Bible". This is God's inspired written testimony. God created the natural world we see all around us. God's creative work is His inspired testimony in the form of object lessons. Both of these inspired testimonies are equally of God. His testimony is truth.

Jesus' prayer included this, "Sanctify them by means of the truth; your word is truth."

So, we have God's testimony, which is truth. We have that word in two forms. Inspired words are God's truth, and inspired creation is God's truth. And, getting back to the closing words of his first epistle, we have what John said of Jesus, that "he has given us intellectual capacity that we may gain the knowledge of the true one."

This is what I've said in more concise terms on several occasions. God gave us His testimony, and He gave us brains, and He expects us to use them both. What it looks like is this:

1) Things that are present in creation or presented in express terms in the Bible, we accept for what they are, for what they say. Each of these serve as propositions useful to use our brains to deduce sound conclusions of what those express propositions imply.

2) Deductions we form of those propositions must conform to conventions of logical construction. That is called using our brain. This is called forming logical (sound) conclusions.

3) We assert express terms for whatever each proposition says.

4) We assert what is deduced from those propositions to the extent we can prove those deductions. Deductions of logical conclusions can vary in veracity, based on the strength of premises (propositions) applied.

5) Things we cannot soundly reason we leave people to decide for themselves, which is as it should be.

6) Aside from express propositions found in either the Bible or creation, every deduction we form must be falsifiable. This is part of logical conclusions.

Then is when and that is how we have the unity Jesus spoke of that relies on the truth of God and the intellectual capacity given by Jesus. We then have a community where all of us as friends are encouraging one another to use our brains, and where we find we are wrong we embrace the moment and rejoice that we've learned and grown as Christian men and women. But we do not ostracize (or otherwise beat!) those who ask that we prove something true and then fail to prove that thing true on the bases of solid testimony from scripture (or creation) or sound conclusions thereof.

 

 

[JW Insider]

@Juan Rivera I finally read through this whole topic, previously only noticing some side topics of interest to me at the time.  And I see that you have often addressed me here and hoped I would offer "on-topic" comments much earlier. As I read through it, I think @Many Miles is offering exactly the kinds of responses I would have offered had I been a little more thoughtful and focused on the original topic.

I agree that Galatians contains themes about doctrinal purity and, per Miles, the limit of obedience to human authority. We get valuable perspectives on these topics as Paul writes about many different things, including his own authority, the good news, being justified by faith and not works, and the difficulties Jewish Christians had fully appreciating that last concept (coming from a background of 1500 years of "salvation by works," i.e., law). 

But it seems that you also intend to find in Galatians some evidence for an ecclesiastical, God-appointed, human authority, such as a governing body that provides a basis for the proper type of Christian unity. I know you are aware from past comments that I believe Paul goes in a different direction on that question. I do think such an authority would be extremely valuable and convenient. But I see too many scriptures that fly in the face of expecting exactly that type of authority today. That doesn't mean that a type of human governing body doesn't serve a good purpose, of course. And this doesn't mean that the congregations are without human teachers and authorities. It just means that we, if we are truly Christian, must share the responsibility with them for what we accept and believe.

Of course, just saying all that is easier than providing the scriptures and details behind it, but many of those points have already been made in this current discussion.

And I like that you are looking for a more methodical approach. I appreciated this about "Rotherham" when I often went on for many pages in discussions with him (over a decade ago). He remained in a private "theology" email discussion group that I lightly participated in for years but I now only read comments from others now and then. Is he still around? Haven't heard from "Rotherham" for years now. Do you know about his health? 

And thanks for locating that blog from Apologetic Front on the web.archive. I found many pages there with some good ideas to review:

https://web.archive.org/web/20150201214409/http://apologeticfront.com/category/faithful-slave/

https://web.archive.org/web/20150201220435/http://apologeticfront.com/category/governing-body/

 

[Many Miles]

31 minutes ago, JW Insider said:

That doesn't mean that a type of human governing body doesn't serve a good purpose, of course. And this doesn't mean that the congregations are without human teachers and authorities. It just means that we, if we are truly Christian, must share the responsibility with them for what we accept and believe.

A profound statement, and well said. Concise. Thorough. Thoughtful. Big gift in a small package. It's Christian.

The only thing I dislike is the phrase "truly Christian". Smacks of "no true Scotsman". I'm confident you understand. I'll let other readers figure it out. Life's a learning experience, after all.

PS: All underlining is added by myself for emphasis.

[Many Miles]

38 minutes ago, JW Insider said:

Of course, just saying all that is easier than providing the scriptures and details behind it, but many of those points have already been made in this current discussion.

Certain witnesses gave proof somewhere. Abel, Noah, Melchizedek, Abraham, Job, Elihu, Cornelius. All, names of men who feared (respected) God and worked righteousness, and whose worship was accepted by God. They honestly just wanted to do right by God. Really, when we read the Genesis account, that's all God ever looked for in Adam, and then Eve. Both, His creative work. Now we are where we are. The aforementioned names all testify to the points you make. Each knew and understood the ultimate authority, and their personal responsibility. Respectively, it was God, and themselves. Between themselves and the Creator, they squarely placed their loyalty to Him, regardless of personal consequence. It's scriptural.

[Pudgy]

 The "No True Scotsman" fallacy is a term coined by philosopher Antony Flew. It occurs when someone redefines a category to exclude counterexamples in order to defend a generalization or stereotype. The name comes from an example where a man claims, "No true Scotsman puts sugar on his porridge," but when presented with a Scotsman who does, he responds, "Well, no true Scotsman puts sugar on his porridge." It highlights the logical flaw of moving the goalposts to maintain a belief. 

Constantly moving the goalposts is the invisible trap.

Twenty years and more of “stay alive ‘till ‘75” becomes “overlapping generations”.

[Pudgy]

So … the task now becomes … what are the SPECIFICATIONS of the task that the men, full of spirit and wisdom, were to be put in charge of?

What is a legitimate job description?

The basic assumption is that the Congregation would be governed EXACTLY as specified in Matthew 18.

The reality at the present time is NOT EVEN CLOSE !

[Many Miles]

3 minutes ago, Pudgy said:

So … the task now becomes … what are the SPECIFICATIONS of the task that the men, full of spirit and wisdom, were to be put in charge of?

What is a legitimate job description?

The basic assumption is that the Congregation would be governed EXACTLY as specified in Matthew 18.

The reality at the present time is NOT EVEN CLOSE !

All things considered, the early Christian church was comprised of folks from very, very diverse backgrounds (think: Palestinians and Jews!!!) who all had one thing in common, plus one new dimension of thought. They all honestly wanted to do right by the One they looked to as their Creator, God. The new thing was Jesus.

The earliest Christians did their best to help this growing entourage attracted to the man from Nazareth, all of whom wanted to worship God in an acceptable way and all of whom heard a call to follow Jesus. They wanted to know how to do it, and the earliest church leaders did their best to help them, and before they passed away in death they left their testimony for the benefit of future followers. They worked to protect worshipers as best they could, but they were all sinners just like us. Today we have their testimony. It's up to each of us to make the best of it.

[Juan Rivera]

2 hours ago, Many Miles said:

Insofar as I can tell in this case, the subject Juan wants me to pursue is, I think, one that I've spent more than sufficient time on. I had a fairly simple question (arguably two) that I got a fairly clear answer on from those who offered their answer, with the exception of Juan. He wrote an immense amount of words in response, but if I had to ferret out his answer to the question of concern of interest to me, I honestly don't think I could say what it is. Here and there I thought I had an answer from him, but then other of his comments called into question whether what I thought he said was what he was trying to convey. Hence, I finally just relaxed and let it be. We each spent a lot of time in this discussion.