hinlicky, p. - theology of the word-a response to jack kilcrease (2009)

8/3/2019 Hinlicky, P. - Theology of the Word-A Response to Jack Kilcrease (2009)

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A Response to Jack Kilcrease

Saturday, 09 May 2009 00:00

The following is a response to Jack Kilcrease's article:

Evangelical and Catholic?: The Conservative' Reformation's Scriptural Principle and the Catholicity of theGospel

Response by Paul R. Hinlicky, Tise Professor of Lutheran Studies, Roanoke College, Salem VA

I should be flattered by the extravagant attention Dr. Kilcrease has paid to my article from 1999.[1] It is inany case interesting for me to be criticized from the theological Right-an uncommon experience for me inthe ELCA. Thanks to the editor's gracious invitation to respond, I have a precious opportunity to offeramplifications and clarifications on my theological project to friends in Lutheranism outside my owntroubled denomination.

Since Kilcrease makes such a big to-do about my supposed affiliations, readers deserve to hear straightfrom the horse's mouth. First, I don't know if the theologians around Pro Ecclesia would so confidentlycount me as one of their fellow travelers, as does Kilcrease.

Truth be told, I have found myself less inclined in recent years to use the party slogan, "evangelicalcatholic," even though I do not renounce it. As for "gospel-reductionism," that accusation takes me backthirty years-though I would be lying to say it fills me with nostalgia for my youth when my churchimploded. I suspect that certain Elertians and Fordeans today-who really are guilty of this reductive move-would likewise not be happy to regard me as one of their own. I hold in distinction from them the primacyof the gospel narrative concerning Jesus Christ, not the primacy of an existentially moving contemporaryword of liberation. For what it is worth, in short, I don't have any other purpose in my theological thinking

than to be a catholic or ecumenical theologian in the tradition of Luther, let the chips fall as they may.

Personally speaking, the unkindest cut of all is Kilcrease's allegation of my "ignorance" of the theologicaltradition of Lutheran Orthodoxy. I have just published with Dennis Bielfeldt and Mickey Mattox a bookon Luther's late disputations on the Trinity,[2] and before that a major study under the editorship of OswaldBayer on Luther'sDisputatio de divinitate et humanitate Christi.[3] I am about to publish a major study,Paths Not Taken: Fates of Theology from Luther through Leibniz.[4] I trust that upon a careful study ofthese more recent efforts Kilcrease's premature judgment about my "ignorance" (not to be confused withmy critical reception) of Lutheran Orthodoxy will be rectified. In any event, the "perplexity" Kilcreaseexperiences in interpreting my 1999 article results from his own polemical procedure, as we shall see, not


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my alleged "ignorance."

I want to get to the heart of the matter Kilcrease has raised-my proposed revision of the Lutheran doctrineof Holy Scripture away from the general Protestant teaching of "Bible alone." Kilcrease gets the gist ofthis: sola scriptura, understood as an unmediated Word from God (thus operating monergistically) yetexpressed through the many human words of the biblical authors. This all self-destructs in the sense that itgenerates multiple, contradictory readings; thus rendering Scripture itself incoherent and producing thecorresponding Protestant sectarianism. What is controversial about that? It was, I recall, Hermann Sasse

who noted that for Lutherans it is not the Bible, but the Bible rightly interpretedwhich bears authority inthe Church, as the norm by which fidelity to Jesus Christ and his gospel is tested. If one grants the latter, itis not "Bible alone," but the Bible with the tradition of its right interpretation to which the LutheranConfessions make claim. I agree with this.

What I propose (prima Scriptura) is professedly an innovation within the tradition of Lutheran theology,which had come in the course of anti-Catholic polemics to speak like the Reformed ofsola Scriptura. Thishappened by extending the "exclusive particle" from soteriology to epistemology, that is, from the originaluse to modify grace, faith and Christ in the doctrine of justification to the Bible as the written Word of Godin a general doctrine of revelation or inspiration. With this move the Bible became the sole and miraculoussource of information about all sorts of things, such that the gospel cannot be discussed, let alone set the

agenda for discussion, until the credibility of the Bible is first determined. Couple this move with furtherborrowing of the correct teaching of monergism in regard to salvation, and the credibility of the Bible hasto be gained by sheer fiat: The Bible is true because God says it is true. End of discussion.

This question-begging move skewers everything. Kilcrease, as it seems to me, comes perilously close tothe logic of Protestant fundamentalism: "God said it; I believe it; that settles it." He simply jettisons theentire problem of hermeneutics in dogmatic theology: "Yes, God has said it, but do you understand it?Why has God said it? To whom has God said it? What kind of literature is this? How can you understandit to be God's Word when it is manifestly the human words of Peter, John or Paul, etc. handed on in thechurch?"

My proposed revision, then, is a needed and legitimate one, not only because it retrieves Luther's moreoriginal conception of the authority of the Scriptures in the church as the Spirit-designated canon of thegospel, but also because it requires under the conditions of our times renewal of the theological task ofinterpretation of the Bible in the church in dogmatic theology.

I cannot in passing do other than protest Kilcrease's caricature of my 1999 article and the method by whichhe comes to it.

It ought to discomfit readers to learn that I simply do not recognize what I wrote ten years ago in theportrait Kilcrease provides them. I urge readers to study the article for themselves. They will learn that itsgoal-admittedly Quixotic in hindsight-was for the Lutheran World Federation to adopt an ecclesiology of

communion. They will also discover that the eventual unity with Rome which I envisioned in 1999 wouldhave to come at the cost of Rome's renunciation of Obermann's Tradition II-a cost that has hardly escapedthe notice of Roman Catholic readers of the article!

But one would never know such things from Kilcrease's account, with the result that my statements aretorn out of context and interpreted apart from the guiding light of express authorial intention. In spite of hisannounced desire "to give a fair exposition of the perspective of our opponents," we are instead treated toan exercise in the Procrustean Bed Method of polemical theology: a preconceived framework (the"Conservative Reformation's Scripture Principle") is deployed to weigh and find wanting statements rippedout of context. So a straw man is erected and slain, but the real target is missed.


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It would be tedious to itemize all Kilcrease's misrepresentations, so let these few stand for the whole: I amsaid to argue:

"the rejection of the scriptural principle" (not the revision of it)to regard "the canon [as] a mere invention of the church" (not the Spirit-guided reception of theapostolic and prophetic books)

to follow "the meta-narrative of Neo-orthodoxy...that Luther's principle of gospel authority' wasbetrayedby the Lutheran scholastics" (not that the "Bible alone" doctrine proved incapable ofsustaining Luther's gospel authority in the passage to modernity)

to hold that "the Word...is an inertobject" (not that the Incarnate, proclaimed and written Word isvulnerable to abuse and misinterpretation-the very reason why we need dogmatic theology!).

In sum I am found guilty of a "rather exaggerated attempt to make up for [a] low view of Scripture" (nottrying, in good faith, to resolve a paralyzing confusion in Lutheran theology of the Word, who is thesecond person of Trinity, incarnate for us and for our salvation and proclaimed in the church through thegospel, with the text of the Bible taken by itself as a miraculous statement of God's opinion about all sorts

of things). I could go on. It ought to come as a relief when Kilcrease acknowledges that "not all thatHinlicky has said is necessarily wrong," but alas, since I have notsaid and do not holdmost of the thingswhich Kilcrease imputes to me, instead of relief I sense only waves of confusion on top of confusion.

I teach my students this principle: "You are not allowed to criticize the opinion of an opponent until youcan state the opinion with such clarity, insight and sympathy that your opponent, upon reading youraccount, would exclaim, That's it! I couldn't have said it better myself!' Then and only then may criticismbegin, because then and only then are you engaged with the real opponent and not a convenient fiction ofyour own imagination." I submit this principle to Dr. Kilcrease for his earnest consideration.

At the same time, I am grateful to my opponent for provoking me to defend the doctrine of Holy Scripture,

the "prophetic and apostolic writings of the Old and New Testaments, as...the pure, clear fountain of Israel,which alone is the one true guiding principle, according to which all teachers and teachings are to be

judged and evaluated."[5] The metaphor ofthe fountain here is the telling one. Christians do not, or shouldnot, hold an Islamic theology of inspiration, in which the angel instructs Mohammed to set aside all humanthoughts and simply recite the divine words. Instead, the actual human, historical testimony of prophets andapostles engaged in the history of their own times in speaking the word of the Lord are written down,preserved, collected, and tested against other writings claiming similar revelation or inspiration in a processof holyparadosis. It is "holy" in that, as a better doctrine of inspiration would rightly teach, the work of theSpirit is to be discerned in, and not apart from, this canonical process of handing on the word of the Lordfrom one generation to the next amid the claims of false prophets and false messiahs (Mk 13:22). Sounderstood, everything depends on grasping the criteria by which the Spirit rules one writing in andanother out.

In this light we would see that the particular books of the New Testament together form a Christologicaldecision against Docetism; that the union of the New and Old Testaments together form a monotheisticdecision against Gnostic dualism; that the perception of the one divine economy of salvation engenderedby the emerging Genesis-to-Revelation canon form a Trinitarian decision against Arian Unitarianism; thatthe cross of the Incarnate Son at the center of the canonical narrative therefore teaches against Nestorianismthe unity of the Person of Christ such that "one of the Trinity suffered" (that is the teaching of the 5thEcumenical Council).


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The hermeneutical function of the Reformation doctrine of justification likewise makes sense in light of thiscontinuing canonical process under the Spirit's promised guidance to lead to all truth by recalling the wordof Jesus. The Reformation brings a new insight, not into what the gospel is, but rather how it is to berightly used: to tell (or receive) Christ (as identified in the ecumenical dogmas' interpretation of Scripture)in such a way that self-entrusting faith suffices to have him with all his blessings.[6]

The foregoing conception of the process of Scriptural tradition in the light of the gospel makes a definitecorrelation between the Spirit's first (prima) formation of the Holy Scriptures and the Spirit's on-going

formation of God's holy people in the course of time: it is here in the church that the Scriptures are receivedand recognized.[7] This location of the Scripture in the church as formative of the church ishermeneutically decisive. This is how I meanprima. The canonical Scriptures are theprimalfountain, butthe fountainflows! Indeed, theflowing is the Spirit'spoint!

Who then has a low view of Scripture or thinks the Word "inert"? I certainly do hope that the "churchgrows to become Church in a more full sense!" I don't mind invoking the Puritan divine who held "thatGod has yet more truth to break out of his Holy Word." None of us have arrived; we are all still on theway.

Given this location of our theological work among the pilgrim people of God between the already and the

not-yet, Kilcrease is forced to concede that I would hold that "the gospel' and the Scriptures which witnessto it have a regulating effect on what can be regarded as legitimate." But Kilcrease dismisses thiscorrelation of theHoly Scriptures with theHoly Church by theHoly Spirit, however, as a "circularargument." How, he asks, "would one be able to criticize the bishops and subsequent traditions of thevisible Church on the basis of the gospel?"

Good question! And he is right to infer that in one sense any such criticism would be "like sawing off thebranch on which we are standing." I do think that the kinds of radical criticism of church tradition that haveevolved into liberal Protestantism "saw off the branch." I do think that right kind of criticism of the bishopsand subsequent traditions arepruning operations on a common root and tree and branch of faith, neitherthe radical reinvention of Christianity in liberalism, nor the radical repristination claimed by Kilcrease's

sola scriptura conservativism.

What matters is that the Scripture principle is not made into a blind appeal to arbitrary authority, but ratherthat one can and should give good reasons theologically why the particular books of the Bible are includedin the canon and how they are accordingly to weigh in judging doctrine. For theology in Luther's traditionthe reasons which count as goodderive from canonical Scripture's chief content, the good news of Christthe Crucified's Easter victory. This is God's authoritative Word, which authorizes the Christian communitycalling God's people out of the world and into the coming kingdom, making them by faith the ek-klesia.

That this is Luther's teaching in the Latin Preface to his collected writings, to which the Formula appealed,seems to me undeniable. As such it specifies the sense of the claim that "God's Word alone ought to be and

remain the only guiding principle and rule of all teaching," which, as the Solid Declaration immediatelygoes on to clarify, "does notmean that other good, useful, pure books that interpret Holy Scripture, refuteerrors and explain the articles of faith are to be rejected."[8]

I hold this position, but I hold it critically at the beginning of the 21st century. That means that I have tohold it under certain conditions that did not obtain for the historical Luther or Lutheran Orthodoxy. Amongthese conditions are inescapable cultural facts, such as the rise of the scientific world-view, including thehistorical criticism of the Bible. I do not invest a lot theologically in this fact, as theological liberals do.Historical criticism is in fact under a lot of pressure today from post-modernist critiques of its pretensions toobjectivity and neutrality. Yet it remains a fact that we cannot read the Bible after historical criticism (if


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ever we could have) like Muslims read the Holy Quran: as only, uniquely, miraculously a word directlyfrom God without human mediation. Any such theory of "recitation" is impossible for us after historicalcriticism.[9]

Instead we today have to read the books of the Bible first of all as Paul's, or Mark's, or John's historicallyspecific words to their own communities, and only then with all the others together in the grand narrativeconstructed by the Spirit through the church of the world's course from Genesis to Revelation; that is, inthe perspective of the divine economy of salvation, bearing unique and authoritative witness to Jesus Christ

as the good reason for the church's existence. Other uses of the Bible, including putatively orthodox onesfor arbitrary, authoritarian proof-texting of opinions about anything under the sun, are abuses of the Bibleas the Spirit's book "from faith for faith" in the light of the gospel.

Kilcrease takes offense when in this context I say that the word of Scripture is "vulnerable," even thoughafter a lot of rhetoric, he concedes the substance of my point and then comments: "one can do very littleabout that." I very much beg to differ.Dogmatic theology is what we can do about that, the renewal ofwhich as a contemporary task under contemporary conditions (not the repristination of some favored 17thcentury authors) is an urgent need in the confused world of American Christianity.

[1]. I wrote this article on the basis of my Habilitation study on the Lutheran-Catholic dialogue whileteaching in Bratislava and had it published there asBuducnost Cirkvi: Co by pre nas malo znamenatrimskokatolicky-evanjelicky dialog? ("The Future of the Church: What the Lutheran-Catholic DialogueOught to Mean for Us," Tranoscius, 1999).

[2]. Paul Hinlicky, Dennis Bielfeldt, Mickey L. Mattox, The Substance of the Faith: Luther'sDoctrinal Theology for Today (Minneapolis: Fortress Press, 2008).

[3]. Oswald Bayer, Creator est Creatura: Luthers Christologie als Lehre von derIdiomenkommunikation, Benjamin Gleede, ed.,(Berlin: Walter de Gruyter, 2007).

[4]. Paul Hinlicky, Paths Not Taken: Fates of Theology from Luther through Leibniz (Grand Rapids:Eerdmans, 2009).

[5]. Robert Kolb, Timothy J. Wengert, eds., The Book of Concord(Minneapolis: Fortress Press,2002), 527.

[6]. I am in negotiation now with Fortress Press for a new book, The Theo-logic of CreedalChristianity, which will make the argument sketched in this paragraph in detail.

[7]. Thanks, in part, to the ministry of oversight which aims to teach in continuity with the prophetsand apostles, that is the kind of "evangelical episcopacy" that Melanchthon envisioned in AugustanaXXVIII. Kilcrease makes a big deal about my supposed embrace of apostolic succession, when I haverepeatedly endorsed the highly qualified language of the Lutheran-Episcopal dialogue to speak of apostolicsuccession as a "sign, not a guarantee." I no more hold to a superstitious view of apostolic succession as aguarantee of doctrine than I hold a superstitious view of Scripture as a guarantee of doctrine-both for thesame reason, namely, a blind appeal to arbitrary authority not theologically warranted by the evangelicalcriteria.

[8]. The Book of Concord, 527 (emphasis added).


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[9]. In my view, notions of recitation or dictation were constructed during the Middle Ages inresponse to increasing knowledge of the Quran's criticism of Jewish and Christian Scripture for beingcorrupted by human additions to a pristine, original revelation.

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A Lost Generationwritten by Rev. Paul T. McCain, May 09, 2009

Paul Hinlicky's response is, as to be expected, thoughtful, thorough and an enjoyable readingexperience, but yet...ultimately, a sad one. Elsewhere on the Internet, Dr. Hinlicky and I have had a bit ofan exchange on Biblical authority issues, over at the Lutheran Forum blog site, not to be confused, mindyou, with the morass that is "Lutheran Forum Online."

What saddens me is that while Dr. Hinlicky is able properly to recognize the errors that have siezed theELCA and all mainline/liberal Lutheranism, he fails ultimately to come to terms with the root cause: acrisis in understanding of Biblical authority.

For Hinlicky, it is perfectly acceptable to doubt, question and deny the historicity of the Genesis ofaccount of Adam and Eve. When questioned and pressed on this point, specifically, when asked toexplain how he reconciles this view with the fact that Christ and the Apostle Paul both assume thehistoricity of the Genesis account of Adam and Eve, he lapsed into what can only be described as an oddwandering about in philosophical speculations about the assumed limitations of Christ's human nature.

But, frankly, he avoids the key question: What Christ lying to us, or simply ignorant?

The sad legacy of the Seminex era is that those who claimed to be champions of the Gospel were, inreality, planing the seeds for what now is coming to full flower in the theological meltdown we see in theELCA.

...written by Jason Loh, May 10, 2009"First principles" such as the Bible alone is God's Word is always by its nature indemonstrable. Orelse, these would not be *first* principles or axioms in the first place.

A Response to the Response.written by jack kilcrease, May 11, 2009After thinking through whether or not I should simply allow my initial article to stand, I havedecided to leave a comment in order to clarify a few things regarding Dr. Hinlicky's characterization of


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my position and my interpretation of his work.

1. If one reads my article carefully, they will note that I never once claim that Dr. Hinlicky himself is a"gospel reductionist." What I say is that he characterizes Luther that way. I think it is probable that thereare some elements of gospel reductionism in Dr. Hinlicky's thought, but I have not directly accused himof this heresy.

2. When I criticize Dr. Hinlicky's knowledge of Luther, I do so on the issues of Scripture and Tradition. I

am well aware of Dr. Hinlicky's writings on Luther. Many of their characterizations of Luther are notones that I agree with. Nevertheless, I was specifically unhappy with his claim regarding Luther'sunderstanding of Scripture as being purely based on gospel authority. This is a claim that many in theLuther renaissance made about Luther. However, it is not true in the least as is demonstrated by thebibliography of works on the subject that are listed in the foot note. Also, Luther became increasinglysuspicious of Church tradition and the Fathers as he became older (particularly after Marburg, for obviousreasons!!!). Chemnitz and most people in the period of early orthodoxy did not share this sentiment.Consequently to say that Luther had a high view of Church tradition and that Lutheran orthodoxy didn't,is entirely untrue. It is true that later dogmaticians of what Preus called the silver age were less interestedin the Fathers, but that clarification was not made.

3. This is the main reason that I characterized Dr. Hinlicky as holding the Neo-orthodoxy meta-narrative.What I was referring to was the view held by a rather significant number of the neo-orthodox theologiansthat the Reformers were spiritual geniuses whose insights were destroyed by the age of orthodoxy. Sincethat's basically what Hinlicky claims about Luther by playing him off against the age of orthodoxy, Icharacterized this as his position.

4. Dr. Hinlicky entirely missed my point regarding the power of the Word. I have no doubt that hebelieves that the hypostatic Word is present in, under and with the written and preached Word. Part of thepoint of the article was to show contradictions in the general Evangelical-Catholic outlook. In otherwords, Dr. Hinlicky believes all these wonderful things about the Word of God, but then behaves as if the

Word needs protecting. When I say "Protecting" I mean something different than "Preservation" (i.e.being purely taught). By protecting the Word, I mean that Hinlicky assumes that the Word is vulnerableand needs the Church tradition and the Bishops to make certain that people don't misinterpret it- ratherthan to be purely taught so that the Holy Spirit can do his work. It's correct that people can misinterpretthe Word. When they do so, they do so in two ways: 1. They don't understand the grammatical meaningof the passage which they misinterpret. This would be an error regarding external clarity and can be fixedby understand Greek and Hebrew better. 2. They reject the gospel, because they are in bondage to sinand therefore read the Sciptures "with a veil over their hearts." Again this would be an error regardinginternal clarity. This cannot be helped by anything other than the Holy Spirit working through the meansof grace.

These are essentially the options that Lutherans have in light of our commitment to the bondage of thewill which is the natural corollary of solas Christus, solas Gracia. As the RCC demonstrates, if people areunder sin, then they will simply automatically reject the truth even if an authoritative Bishop or theChurch tradition claims that things are "such and such." This where I characterize Dr. Hinlicky as treatingScripture as an inert object. If humans are free to abuse it and not abuse it then we would need authoritieslike Bishops and the Church tradition to appeal to people's freedom and rationality so that they couldmake better decisions. This is basically what he proposes. If that's so, then it's not the Word of God,which determines people whom it addresses monergistically.

In some ways, the Elephant in the room here is that Dr. Hinlicky did not shown how his position isconsistent with Lutheran claims about bondage, law and gospel- internal and external clarity. These


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things all hang together.

5. I found it interesting that Dr. Hinlicky characterized my position as Fundamentalistic and invokedSasse regarding the fact that Lutherans do not simply believe in the Bible, but in specific content. Myclaim throughout the piece was that the Bible is a delivery system for Christ. This means that verbalinspiration serves the gospel and is therefore a necessary corollary to sola gracia- a point often made byFranz Pieper.

Further point of clarification.written by Jack Kilcrease, May 11, 2009One more word of clarification. On 1. I suggested that I did not directly claim that Dr. Hinlicky isa gospel reductionist, but held elements of that position. I believe I need to emphasize that I am in no waybacking down on my claim that I do find those elements in his thinking and believe that they haveinfluenced his understanding of Scripture in inappropriate ways. What I merely attempting to clarify wasthat I never directly suggest that Dr. Hinlicky is a gospel-reductionist in the manner that for exampleSchultz, Schroeder or Bertram were. Also, I wrote "some elements" when I meant to write "strongelements." I apologize for being unclear.

Brief Responses to McCain and Kilcreasewritten by Paul Hinlicky, May 18, 2009To Paul McCain: Thank you for in spirit at least offering a charitable, if sad reflection on myresponse to Dr. Kilcrease's hatchet job.You are right. I do not regard it as a liability for my position that on the basis of the best availableexegesis we today regard the stories of Genesis 1-10 as history-like but not actual history. I do regard it asa huge liablity for your position, since it entangles one in all sorts of desperate attempts to correct today'sbest science on theological grounds; in the process it diverts attention from the true scandals of theparticularity of Jesus (a first century Jew) and His cross. Likewise, then, Christologically, the assumptiocarnis et animae (we are not tacit Apollinarians, are we?) entails that the human psychology of theIncarnate Word in the state of humiliation was a limited one, like ours, and accomodated to its own times,like ours. All this, 'error' too (if you insist rationalistically on that notion) without sin. I do not regard suchradicalism about 'God deep in the flesh' as some errant philosophical speculation; I got the idea fromLuther. The Gospels' admitted (e.g., Mark 13: 32) limitation of Jesus' knowledge is no problem, if we areTrinitarians, who have as vital a doctrine of the Spirit as of the Incarnate Word, since it is the Spirit's on-going work to lead us to all truth by recalling the Word of Jesus, the Word which He Himself is. But ifyou by contrast have to assume that everything reported in the New Testament as words of Jesus must beperfect revelation about anything under the sun, lest the whole house of cards collapse, well, I regard thatalso as a definite liablity in your position.Dr. Kilcrease: I have nothing to say to you, especially after reading this obstinate reiteration of your

previous allegations, until you undertake a careful, I stress, careful reading of my works which I hadpreviously referenced and demonstrate to the public your capacity to interpret charitably as well ascritically, as I had previously admonished you. You should be ashamed of ever having submitted thatthing for publication. This business of conducting serious arguments by capturing others in grosscategories of one's own imagination is unworthy of Christian theology. Period.To the public: my rather strong views on divine monergism form the point of departure for forthcomingPaths Not Taken: Fates of Theology from Luther through Leibniz (Eerdmans, July, 2009). Readers,hopefully including Dr. Kilcrease, will learn from it how deep the confusion about this matter is inLutheran tradition, and how profound the corresponding correction will have to be. Nothing so trite as amagical Bible, working ex opere operato, will come to our rescue, if I am right, 'Lutheranism' is theunstable synthesis of monergistic and synergistic tendencies! But read it for yourselves, and decide.


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Ashamed?written by Jack Kilcrease, May 18, 2009Dr. Hinlicky, I am gravely puzzled as to why I should be ashamed for having critiqued yourposition on Scripture and tradition. I guess I reiterated my points because your response to me wasunsatisfying. You're really not answered any of my arguments against you. You mainly say that I get youwrong and then you seem to more or less admit that I did get you right and then, you charged me withbeing a a fundamentalist and dismissed me. I guess I don't find this to be much of real answer and I

therefore I'm puzzled regarding whey I should feel ashamed about it. Again, the question remains. Howdoes your position jive with Lutheran claims about bondage? How can I believe in God's law andpromises if I doubt the history underlining them? How could a Lutheran who believes in bondage believethat the Scripture are vulnerable in the way you say they are? How does you position relate to externaland internal clarity? You answer none of these questions (much of which my critique rest on) and so Iagain remain puzzled as to what I've done wrong or why I should be "ashamed."

A Point on Kenosiswritten by Jack Kilcrease, May 19, 2009

Dr. Hinlicky, I would also note on the issue of the knowledge of Christ, the claim that Christ wasin error because he was a person of his times is problematic. It is one thing to negatively have concealedthe time of the last day in from himself in the state of humiliation, it is another thing to be positively inerror (i.e. original of the the Pentateuch). If we claimed that he simply took on the beliefs of his times,then we could simply chalk up any theological or historical claimed (for example, his apocalypticism) to afeature of the times. The entire point of Christ's prophetic office is that he teaches us unadulterated andfinal truth.

Why Ashamed?written by Bethany Tanis, May 19, 2009

I confess to being a bit unclear as to why Dr. Kilcrease should be "ashamed" of having submittedan article critical of the "Evangelical Catholic" tradition using a piece by Dr. Hinlicky as an example. Thenature of scholarship is that once something has been publicly published it is available for comment,approval, and even critique. Additionally, I can assure Logia readers that Dr. Kilcrease, who I know(very well!), is very familiar with Dr. Hinlicky's work and was careful to "interpret charitably as well ascritically." I am unsure as to where precisely Kilcrease attempted to conduct "serious arguments bycapturing others in gross categories of one's own imagination [which] is unworthy of Christian theology."Even if Kilcrease did fall into this trap, I fear that Dr. Hinlicky may have also been guilty of the samefallacy when he accused Kilcrease of "Fundamentalism." I am confident that Dr. Hinlicky is familiarenough with the history and theology of American Fundamentalism to know that Kilcrease's view of theBible is far from Fundamentalist. Really, it is unfortunate that in theology, especially, academic

discussions tend to get so personal and heated. This is generally not the case in my field, history. Ofcourse, the difference, I suppose, is that no one thinks getting history wrong is a matter of eternal life ordeath, whereas that could come into play in theological debates, making them immensely more personaland heated!

Really Nothing New to Say to Dr. Kilcreasewritten by Paul Hinlicky, May 19, 2009I am sorry you are so gravely perplexed, and I am not at all reluctant to face the otherwiseinteresting questions you pose to me, but (to repeat myself): I teach my students this principle: "You are


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not allowed to criticize the opinion of an opponent until you can state the opinion with such clarity,insight and sympathy that your opponent, upon reading your account, would exclaim, That's it! I couldn'thave said it better myself!' Then and only then may criticism begin, because then and only then are youengaged with the real opponent and not a convenient fiction of your own imagination." I (re-)submit thisprinciple to Dr. Kilcrease for his earnest consideration.In my view, you have not earned the right to ask me a rational question and get a rational answer, becauseof the polemical method you employ, creating a caricature in which I do not recognize myself. I will notplay that game. Period.

Unfair?written by Jack Kilcrease, May 20, 2009Dr. Hinlicky, I am unwilling to accept your claim that I have been unfair to you for a number ofreasons. First, no one that I have had read the pieces believes that I have been unfair to you or made anyfalse claims about you position. Secondly, you are unwilling to give a real response and explain where Ihave "caricatured" you argument. The written piece above states that I caricatured you, then admits that Idid get you right and then dismisses me. I therefore must come to the conclusion that I have in fact founddifficulties with your position which you are unwilling to admit to or engage in a real debate about.BTW, I was pleased to hear about your suggestion that Lutheranism is an "unstable mixture of

syngergism and monergism." Part of my critique was that you position was inconsistent with theconfessional Lutheran belief in monergism. In light of the fact that you have admitted that you positionworks from the assumption of synergism (or at least you say Lutheranism does, which I assume that youinclude yourself within), your actual position on Scripture and tradition makes a great deal more sense.Here I thought you were being inconsistent, when you are actually openly rejecting orthodoxLutheranism on this point (as well as the Scriptures I might add).

Lastly, a note on defining of terms. You have a tendency to claim that you "believe in such and such" andthen not meaning by "such and such" anything remotely like other people mean by the phrase. Forexample, you say that you do believe in the scriptural principle- of course you believe in "a" scripturalprinciple, but not one that orthodox Lutheranism has always believed in. I was reading something else byyou as well and you claimed that you could accept the LCMS' statement on the authority of Scripture-you just won't accept the meaning of the terms in precisely the way that we in the LCMS do. Herein lies Ithink the problem. I argued against you using the range of meaning people attached to certain words.Your response was to claim that I was wrong because the things that I claimed you didn't believe in, youcould claim that you did on the basis of your redefined terms. On a certain level, I wish that you wouldsimply admit that you didn't believe in "such and such" and not try to subscribe to traditional formulasthat you do not invest with the same meaning. You at very least do this to a certain degree when youclaim that we who live within the sphere of the old synodical convention believe in "magical" dictationtheory.

Also, a note on theological polemic.written by Jack Kilcrease, May 20, 2009Dr. Hinlicky, I think I should also respond to your claim that I am being polemical. You correct inasserting this. The piece was intended to be as such. I guess I find it hard to believe that a Lutheran wouldhave trouble with polemic. After all, as Eberhard Jungel points out, the theology of the cross isnecessarily a polemical theology. Luther was very highly polemical in his writings. We should always befair, but one can be fair and be polemical. I strongly endeavored to be fair to what you had written andeveryone who has read my writing and yours (that I know) thinks that I was. The more and more wehave this discussion, it appears that you mainly objected to the polemical nature of my piece and actuallyaccepted my content as being accurate. Furthermore, since you have been unwilling to muster a real


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response (claiming that I must "earn" this- "earning" it by my merit seems very un-Lutheran, don't youthink?), I have no basis for thinking anything other than this has been the whole problem from thebeginning! Also, I would not agree that one must be sympathetic with one's opponent to fairly interpretthem. Luther was not sympathetic with Zwingli nor with Erasmus, yet he capture their positions and thedangers of them very well. Perhaps in light of your acceptance of some "unstable elements of synergism"you think that Erasmus was ill treated by Luther- but my point stands. Similarly, I think that as a ChristianI could give a fair minded exposition of the book of Mormon and not be very sympathetic with theposition suggested therein. In light of this, it seems odd to me that you are willing to give a clear response.

An Errant or Deceptive Jesus?written by Rev. Paul T. McCain, May 22, 2009Try as I might, I simply do not hear the voice of the Church, catholic and evangelical, in Dr.Hinlicky's explanation of what amounts to either an errant Jesus or a deceptive Jesus.

I have appreciated this vigorous dialogue back and forth, precisely what Dr. Hinlicky demanded, quitepolemically, recently, over on the Lutheran Forum's blog site. I am surprised by Dr. Hinlicky's reticencehere to engage in the same sort of vigorous debate. That seems quite unbecoming of Dr. Hinlicky andbeneath his dignity. I suspect emotion simply got the better of him. As it does all of us, as Professor Tanis,

wisely notes, when it comes to these issues none of us is engaged in a book-club conversation that we canleave at the end of the hour and think not much more about.

I believe Dr. Hinlicky recognizes clearly the absolute dead-end to which the Seminex movement hasbrought the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America, but is having a hard time retracing his steps out ofthe vexing cul de sac in which the ELCA finds itself.

On Polemical Theologywritten by Paul Hinlicky, May 24, 2009I regret to see that Paul McCain has joined Dr. Kilcrease in resort to that bane of Missouri Synodexistence: polemical theology, that is, not theology as faith seeking understanding, but theology as act ofreligious war. I wont have anything substantive to say to either theologian, because I wont be a part of amud-slinging free-for-all.Attack! Attack! Attack! Trap an opponent in a few, uncomprehended words or phrases or ideas, andVoila! An Errant Christ! or, Aha! Synergism! Ugh.What childs play.But in adults such luxuriant self-indulgence in the Strawman fallacy is vulgar and mean-spirited; for thesake of Christian truth, one must treat it as beneath the dignity of a serious response. It does not deserve aserious response. It is fundamentally unserious.It is unserious in two senses. First, an impossible stance of repristinationism regards any change from

some golden age in the past as deviation. This is not serious because is simply denies the difficultieswhich Christian theology faces today: the historical criticism of the Bible, for instance, or the massiveexpansion of contemporary cosmology in science.But this is our Fathers world. I therefore think these events can be absorbed into the biblical world, inGeorge Lindbecks suggestive words, by a post-critical, robustly Trinitarian theology. It would also bepossible to deny such absorption is possible. That would be a serious debate. What is not possible, what isfundamentally unserious like an ostrich poking its head in the sand, is denying the difficulties created fortheology by contemporary thought.Second, according to the moral counsel of the Eighth Commandment, we are to adopt a hermeneutics ofcharity, rather than suspicion, i.e., to realize that understanding other minds is not easy, but the demandingtask of love. More than any other, a loveless, Christless, Spiritless disease of theological polemicism was


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the reason why I left the Missouri Synod. In such a climate, one could never understand anything oranyone. Instead you got a gold star when you could learn a few pet phrases with which to smear ideasthat you do not understand as well as the person who hold them.I dont mind being criticized at all for positions which I actually do hold, such as, that there is a real,historical, human soul in the person of Christ, with the apparent errors which either Christ commits (orthe Evangelist attributes to Him, e.g., Mark 13:30), or that, while Genesis 3 refers in an epic way to anhistorical Fall at misty dawn of human consciousness, it does not give us the history of the Fall. Error isnot sin, and theological truth does not have to be delivered in the form of historical facticity.

Nor do I mind criticizing others for the positions which they actually hold. But achieving disagreement isa task which succeeds, when it succeeds, in advancing the argument, not in the gotcha games played bythose who more imitate Luthers bombast than his insight.

...written by Jason Loh, May 30, 2009"Error is not sin, and theological truth does not have to be delivered in the form of historicalfacticity."

Then who Jesus is matters little. Who cares if He was crucified 2000 years ago, or rose on the third day?

On Banes and Blessingswritten by Rev. Paul T. McCain, June 04, 2009I regret that Dr. Hinlicky can't seem to move past what strikes me as assertions that do not advancethis conversation, but only strives to slip in a shot or two and then abandon the conversation. Ironic, giventhe accusations being levelled at Jack and me. It is sad to see a person of Dr. Hinlicky's ability indulge inthis kind of emotionally oriented approach to these very serious issues.

I think we will find the fundamental problems in Dr. Hinlicky's effort to criticize the ELCA's trends,while at the same time attempting to maintain the theological uncertainty and skepticism that was, andcontinues to be, the end result of the Seminex movement.

I believe that a recently translated work by August Vilmar might be very useful:

The Theology of Facts Versus the Theology of Rhetoric

http://www.lulu.com/content/paperback-book/the-theology-of-facts-versus-the-theology-of-rhetoric/4464052

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hinlicky, p. - theology of the word-a response to jack kilcrease (2009)

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