{"id":4901,"date":"2019-09-20T06:02:45","date_gmt":"2019-09-20T13:02:45","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/crossalone.us\/?p=4901"},"modified":"2019-09-24T07:12:50","modified_gmt":"2019-09-24T14:12:50","slug":"the-new-book-the-essential-forde-is-pseudo-forde-4","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/crossalone.us\/?p=4901","title":{"rendered":"The new book, The Essential Forde<\/em>, is pseudo-Forde (4)"},"content":{"rendered":"\n
Click here for PDF version<\/a> <\/center>
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\u201cI think it is safe to say the major conflict<\/strong> in our\nchurch today<\/strong> is a clash in precisely this area,\u201d[1]<\/a>\nwrote Gerhard Forde in 1964.  \u201cThe area\u201d was the conflict over how the\nauthority of the Word of God is established. By the method of verbal inerrancy\nor by the law-gospel method?<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Surely the new book, The\nEssential Forde<\/em>, includes Forde on the authority of the Word of God? On\nwhat he called \u201cthe major conflict in\nour church today<\/strong>\u201d? But it doesn\u2019t. Nothing. Nada. Not a single essay<\/strong>, even though it was a major theme throughout his\ncareer.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

This \u201cmajor conflict<\/strong>\u201d\nis with us still, as Forde\u2019s editors, Mark Mattes and Steven Paulson, note:<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cForde\u2019s work in hermeneutics<\/strong>…will\nbe an abiding interest for the future.<\/strong> He especially identifies the\nsacramentality of the preached word itself. God\u2019s gospel, unlike the\nrestraining and preserving law, creates anew \u2013 even out of nothing. It does\nwhat it says, says what it does. Scripture\nas the source of this word is the battleground<\/strong> for the problem of dealing\nwith an eschatological word that raises from the dead. And a pitched battle it\nis. Since the letter kills and the Spirit gives life the problem of interpretation of scripture is key for all matters of\nchurch and theology.<\/strong>\u201d[2]<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n

What a loss that Forde\u2019s work on hermeneutics is missing\nfrom The Essential Forde.<\/em> As his\neditors above write, it \u201cis key<\/strong> for\nall matters of church and theology.\u201d Below is the real Forde on the \u201cmajor conflict in the church today<\/strong>,\u201d\nthe authority of the Word of God: <\/p>\n\n\n\n

1964: <\/strong>\u201cLaw and gospel as the methodological principle of theology.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201c[T]he verbal inspiration theory\nhas the increasingly obvious difficulty that it is unable to deal with facts\ngained both by research into the Bible and the world around us. For over two\nhundred years now it has demonstrated its inability\nto cope with truths established by scientific and historical research.<\/strong> In\nthe face of the mounting knowledge of the world, the verbal inspiration method has had no constructive counsel to give,\nbut can only advise one to retreat from the world<\/strong> and refuse to face those\nthings which one finds uncomfortable. One does not need to go outside the Bible\nitself to show the inability of this method to cope with the facts. Clearly the\nbelief that there are no mistakes of any sort in scripture simply is not true.\nThe many discrepancies within <\/em>the Bible itself \u2013 where the Bible\ndisagrees with itself \u2013 demonstrate this fact.[3]<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cI am in effect saying to God\nthat unless he provides me with the kind of guarantee which I expect and want,\nI cannot believe. Then I am in a very dangerous position because I am dictating\nto God the conditions under which I will believe. It is dangerous because it might just be that God has not in fact<\/em> provided us with that kind of\nguarantee.<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

In the final analysis the verbal\ninspiration method is based on a theory\u2014a\nhuman theory<\/strong> about the nature of the\nWord of God.<\/strong> Now the test for the validity of any theory is how well it\nexplains the facts, and one can only say that this theory does not explain the\nfacts very well. It is based on human logic and once its logic is broken the\nentire position collapses all at once.\u201d[4]<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cFinally, what is at stake in\nthis conflict over method? Must we make a choice between them today? If so,\nwhy? I think we must.<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

We are fighting for the restoration of the gospel. <\/strong>It must be made\nabsolutely clear here that it is not<\/em>\ndedication to historical-critical research, it is not<\/em> dedication to science or any other human endeavor which decides\nthe matter. It is purely and simply dedication to the gospel. For the twentieth\ncentury the burning question is the question \u2018how do you know?\u2019 and one cannot\ncompromise on this question today without compromising the gospel. It is not possible to hold both these\nmethods today, or to compromise between them without compromising and hence\ndistorting the gospel.\u201d[5]<\/strong><\/a><\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

1978: <\/strong>\u201cInfallibility Language and the Early Lutheran Tradition.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201c[W]ith rare exceptions\ninfallibility language is used positively only in a gospel context. It is used\nto assert that the promises of God in his Word are trustworthy and that they\napply to the hearers of that Word\u2026.The question which naturally arises at this\npoint is: What is the Word of God to which this kind of infallibility is\nascribed? A formal legalistic biblicism\nis clearly not what Luther and early Lutherans had in mind.<\/strong> In the\ncontroversy with the peasants especially, and with other sectarians of the\ntimes as well, such biblicism was encountered\nand rejected.<\/strong> \u2018Luther\u2019s ultimate authority and standard was not the book of\nthe Bible and the canon as such but that scripture which interpreted itself and\nalso criticized itself from its own\ncenter, from Christ and from the radically understood gospel.\u2019<\/strong> For Luther,\nthe authority of Scripture was Christ-centered and therefore gospel-centered.\nScripture bears testimony to all the articles about Christ and is on that\naccount to be so highly valued. One who does not find Christ in the Scriptures\nengages in superfluous reading, even if he or she reads it carefully. One\nshould \u2018refer the Bible to Christ \u2026 nothing but Christ should be proclaimed.\u2019\nLuther can even go so far as to say: \u2018If\nadversaries use scripture against Christ, then we put Christ against the\nscriptures.\u2019<\/strong> The Word of God therefore is ultimately Christ and the\nproclamation of the gospel.\u201d[6]<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n

1987: <\/strong>\u201cRadical Lutheranism.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cThe attempt to combine two\nincompatible views means that internally it [Lutheranism] has always had to\nbattle its fundamental scepticism, its\nuncertainty about the basis for its faith.<\/strong> So in its practice it has\nresorted mostly to a dogmatic absolutism largely dependent on a view of scriptural inerrancy,<\/strong> which usually\nbrought with it disguised moral\nabsolutisms<\/strong> of various sorts as well.\u201d[7]<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n

1989: <\/strong>\u201cThe Catholic Impasse: Reflections on the Lutheran-Catholic\nDialogue Today.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cHow did the churches react to the break in the history of the West called the Enlightenment and its social\nand political aftermath? In broad terms, the reaction was of two sorts:\nresistance or accommodation. For both Catholics and Protestants the resistance\ntook the form of a defensive hardening of lines against the Enlightenment\n\u2018erosion\u2019 of the biblical and apostolic faith. At its apex, the hardening of\nlines took the form of rallying behind infallibilism: papal infallibility in\nthe case of Rome and biblical\ninfallibility or inerrancy <\/strong>in the case of Protestants. The threatened erosion of apostolic or scriptural truth by\nEnlightenment criticism<\/strong> could best and most safely be countered by outright\nrefusal to consider the argument. The fact that both Catholics and Protestants\nreacted with something of the same tactic indicates that both operated with\npretty much the same hermeneutical principles: the authoritativeness of the Holy Words<\/strong> rests almost exclusively in\ntheir ability to signify something on the order of \u2018metaphysical\u2019 truth<\/strong>: i.e., \u2018true\ndoctrines.\u2019<\/strong> Where criticism erodes this ability or where the proper\ninterpretation of the words is questioned, additional authoritative support is\nneeded. Thus the resort to infallibilist\nclaims<\/strong>, either ecclesiastical or scriptural.[8]<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n

1990: <\/strong>Theology is for\nProclamation<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cThe Enlightenment sought to\nliberate the world from such heteronomy. It saw clearly that old news was bad\nnews. Those who think that an inerrant or infallible historical record solves\nthe problem mistake the gravity of the crisis\u2026.On the \u2018right\u2019 conservatives and\nreactionaries insist that we are safe only if everything is, so to speak, set\nin stone. We are protected from the\nerosions of time only by an inerrant scripture, infallible secondary discourse.<\/strong>\nBut this is likewise an undermining of the present-tense proclamation. Old news\nremains bad news even if it is supposedly inerrant or infallible.\u201d[9]<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cFrom this perspective one might\nwell ask why there is so much religious fury directed at historical criticism.\nWill we be ashamed of the one we find thereby? To be sure, the historical\ncritical method is not theologically neutral; ambiguity surrounds its usage. It\nis highly questionable when used to establish continuity with \u2018the real Jesus\u2019\nwho is supposed no longer to be an offense or a threat. But resistance to the\nmethod can also be due to the stake we have in the titles that similarly\nprotect from that offense.\u201d[10]<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cConservative Christology seeks\nto trace explicitly \u2018proof\u2019 for the\n\u2018divinity\u2019 of Jesus directly back to the teaching of an inerrant scripture.<\/strong>\nThere is direct continuity between the Christology of Jesus thus uncovered and\ntheir own. Today such a Christology can maintain itself only by ignoring the development of<\/strong> careful historical investigation of the\nScripture and the problematics that gave rise to that historical work.<\/strong>\u201d[11]<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cThe Gospels had to be written to\ntell the truth about Jesus in the light of the cross and the resurrection. They\nhad to be written to preserve the delicate dialectic between continuity and\ndiscontinuity. We may indeed argue as to the\nrelative success each of the Gospels achieves<\/strong> in this sensitive enterprise,\nbut it is essential for proclamation today to understand this if one is going\nto preach significantly on the Gospels. On the one hand, the life and teachings\nare of no significance apart from the death and resurrection. Indeed, they had\nto be transformed in the light of the cross and resurrection. This fact is\nusually the most difficult, especially for the literalists among us. We must reckon with the fact that the words\nand teachings of the earthly Jesus in all probability could not have been\nhanded on as he gave them even if those very words had been preserved.<\/strong> The\ndeath and resurrection had intervened and it would be untrue to what God was\ndoing to hand on anything about Jesus apart from that fact.\u201d[12]<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n

1990: <\/strong>\u201cScriptura sacra sui\nipsius interpres<\/em>: Reflections on the Question of Scripture and Tradition\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cSui ipsius interpres<\/em> [Scripture interprets itself] is simply the\nhermeneutical correlate of justification by faith alone. In this light, formal\nclaims made for extra-scriptural authority structures and\/or formal declarations about biblical\nauthority<\/strong> (inerrancy, infallibility, etc.) are constructs which in one way\nor another are simply a reflex<\/strong> of the needs of the subjective sensus proprius<\/em>.<\/strong>\u201d[13]<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n

1990\u2019s (no date given) <\/strong>\u201cAuthority in the Church: The Lutheran\nReformation\u201d <\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cThe insistence that scripture interprets itself<\/strong> is simply\nthe hermeneutical correlate of justification\nby faith alone<\/strong>\u2026.From the Reformation perspective, the problem in the church\nis not finally to be traced to a lack of nerve in asserting the law, but rather\nin the failure to preach the gospel in all its radicality. There is absolutely\nno way that the proper authority and\nuses of the law<\/strong> are going to be established in the church\u2019s message without\nthat radical gospel. This call for a more radical gospel is the raison d\u2019\u00eatre<\/em> for my teaching. Since the\nReformation, beginning even with the Saxon Visitation (the \u2018graveyard\u2019 of the\nReformation?) where Melanchthon tried to shore up the sagging enterprise by\npreaching the law more strenuously, just about all the remedies have been\ntried. We have about used up all our coupons. We have only one left. We should\ntry it \u2013 a more radical gospel.\u201d[14]<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n

1997:<\/strong> \u201cThe One Acted Upon\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cBut in the seminary it soon\nbecame apparent that the ancient\ntradition was under attack.<\/strong> The attack, however, was not from without but\nfrom within. It was not, that is, the inroads of criticism and liberalism,\netc., that were the ultimate source of trouble. Such inroads could temporarily\nat least be sidestepped, accommodated, or moderated. So we read Brunner (the\nmost used in dogmatics classes as I recall), and Sittler, and Kantonen, and\nNygren, and Tillich, etc., and they assured us that all was well in the\n\u201cNeo-Orthodox\u201d camp. Yet there was, for me at least, a certain unease. The\nsurrender of biblical inerrancy to various versions of \u201ctruth as encounter\u201d and\nother existentialist ploys seemed to lack the bite of the older views of biblical authority.<\/strong> Perhaps it was that something of\nthe offense was gone. Yet there was no\nway back. Older views of biblical inerrancy were not an offense, they were just\nintellectually offensive.<\/strong> I was looking, I think, for something deeper and\nmore compelling, a gospel authority that establishes itself by its own power\nand attractiveness, not a legal authority that simply demands submission.\u201d[15]<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n

The real Forde on scripture is a post-liberal Lutheran:<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cThe \u2018post-liberal Lutheran\u2019 is,\nof course, something of a shadowy, if not menacing, figure on the contemporary\nscene, perhaps not yet clearly defined, often a puzzle to both friend and foe,\nusually mistaken simply for a hard-line\nconservative confessionalist or orthodoxist.<\/strong> But that is seriously to misread the situation.<\/strong> It is a\npost-Enlightenment, post-liberal position. A post-liberal Lutheran is one who\nhas been through the options spawned since the Reformation and realizes that\nthey have all been used up. Least of all\ndoes infallibilism or reactionary conservatism of any sort provide an answer.<\/strong>[16]<\/a>
<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\n\n\n\n

[1]<\/a>  Gerhard Forde, \u201cLaw and Gospel as the Methodological Principle of Theology,\u201d in A Discussion of Contemporary  Issues in Theology by Members of the Religion Department at Luther College <\/em>(Decorah, Iowa; Luther College Press, 1964) 50-69; here 51. Bolding added for emphasis here and below. In 1961 all but one member of the Luther College religion faculty resigned in defense of the inerrancy of scripture, which Robert W. Jenson, a member of the faculty, rejected. Jenson remained on the faculty with the support of the College President, J. W. Ylvisaker. Read more here<\/a>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

[2]<\/a> Mark C. Mattes and Steven D. Paulson, \u201cIntroduction,\u201d A More Radical Gospel. Essays on Eschatology, Authority, Atonement, and Ecumenism. Gerhard O. Forde. <\/em>Eds. Mark C. Mattes and Steven D. Paulson(Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 2004) xvii-xviii.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

[3]<\/a> Forde, \u201cLaw and Gospel as the Methodological Principle of Theology,\u201d 56. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

[4]<\/a> Forde, \u201cLaw and Gospel as the Methodological Principle of Theology,\u201d 56-57.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

[5]<\/a> Forde, \u201cLaw and Gospel as the Methodological Principle of Theology,\u201d 67.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

[6]<\/a> Forde, \u201cInfallibility Language and the Early Lutheran Tradition,\u201d Teaching Authority and Infallibility in the Church. Lutherans and Catholics in Dialogue VI<\/em>. Eds. Paul C. Empie, T. Austin Murphy, and Joseph A. Burgess (Minneapolis: Augsburg Publishing, 1978) 120-37, here 129.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

[7]<\/a> Forde, \u201cRadical Lutheranism,\u201d Lutheran Quarterly<\/em> 11:1 (Spring, 1987) 12-13. Emphasis added.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

[8]<\/a> Forde, \u201cThe Catholic Impasse: Reflections on Lutheran-Catholic Dialogue Today,\u201d Promoting Unity. Themes in Lutheran-Catholic Dialogue. <\/em>Eds. H. George Anderson and James R. Crumley Jr. (Minneapolis: Augsburg, 1989)  67-77; here 71.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

[9]<\/a> Forde, Theology is for Proclamation<\/em> (Minneapolis: Fortress Press, 1990) 7-8.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

[10]<\/a> Forde, Theology is for Proclamation<\/em>, 68.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

[11]<\/a> Forde, Theology is for Proclamation<\/em>, 70.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

[12]<\/a> Forde, Theology is for Proclamation<\/em>, 85.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

[13]<\/a> Forde, \u201cScriptura sacra sui ipsius interpres<\/em>: Reflections on the Question of Scripture and Tradition,\u201d A More Radical Gospel<\/em>, 72. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

[14]<\/a> Forde, \u201cAuthority in the Church: The Lutheran Reformation,\u201d A More Radical Gospel<\/em>, 53-67; here 66-67.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

[15]<\/a> Forde, \u201cThe One Acted Upon,\u201d dialog<\/em> 36:1 (1997) 57-58.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

[16]<\/a> Gerhard Forde, \u201cThe Catholic Impasse,\u201d Promoting Unity. Themes in Lutheran-Catholic Dialogue<\/em>, 72.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

\u201cI think it is safe to say the major conflict in our church today is a clash in precisely this area,\u201d wrote Gerhard Forde in 1964. \u201cThe area\u201d was the conflict over how the authority of the Word of God is established. By the method of verbal inerrancy or by the law-gospel method?<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-4901","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/crossalone.us\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4901","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/crossalone.us\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/crossalone.us\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/crossalone.us\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/crossalone.us\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=4901"}],"version-history":[{"count":58,"href":"https:\/\/crossalone.us\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4901\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":4971,"href":"https:\/\/crossalone.us\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4901\/revisions\/4971"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/crossalone.us\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=4901"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/crossalone.us\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=4901"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/crossalone.us\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=4901"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}