Once again with all due respect, you are confusing categories. If the disagreement between Presbyterianism and congregationalism was a simple historical curiosity, you would indeed be correct and one would be obliged to learn the background to discuss the issue intelligently. But both views claim to be supported by Scripture and it is what Scripture says and does not say that is what trumps any merely historical argument. And as I have shown, there are considerable problems with trying to derive Presbyterian structures as GNC deductions from the Acts data.
It would be foolish to address the Bible a-historically, especially seeing as the issue under discussion is in fact historically conditioned.
It is not addressing the bible ahistorically to begin one's quest for a the meaning of a passage of Scripture by directly analyzing what it says or implies without presuming conclusions already reached by earlier writers. For those writers too, were seeking to find out what the Bible taught by direct analysis of its teachings. But because they were human, their analyses will reach conclusions that are either good and necessary consequences of the Scriptural data, or conclusions that are not good and necessary consequences of the Scriptural data. In addition, those earlier writers may have missed relevant points noticed by a later writer. If this latter possibility is the case, then the earlier argument cannot be necessarily presumed to be valid.
So the work of the earlier writers too must be judged. The best Reformed Scholarship recognizes these problems and does not blindly accept the conclusions of earlier writers as being necessarily authoritative for us. One need only look at how the Reformers analyzed the writings of the church fathers against Scripture, utilizing the arguments of these men where they agreed with Scripture and rejecting other arguments of these same men when those arguments did not come to conclusions that were necessary consequences of Scripture. Examine for example the Reformed use of Augustine. We typically accept his his understanding of predestination as Biblical, yet we generally find him unbiblical in the area of the relationship between justification and sanctification.
Another problem that we must face is that later writers may put forth an argument for a particular view of what a passage teaches that an ealier writer has shown by GNC deduction from Scripture to be incorrect. (As an illustration cf. how the arguments of Athanasius destroy the Arianism of the Jehovah's Witnesses.)
Now we also know that an author, ancient or modern, who presents direct analyis of a Scriptural passage is not always right, so how should these arguments of men be addressed?
The WCF explictly recognizes that both ancient and modern writers can get things wrong when it debars both the "opinions of ancient writers" and "doctrines of men" from having the final say in settling religious disagreements. And when it assigns final authority "by which ALL controversies of releigon are to be determined ... [to] no other but the Holy Spirit speaking in the scripture" and having earlier defined what the Holy Spirit is speaking in the scripture as that which is "either expressly set down in scripture, or by good and necessary consequence may be deduced from Scripture" (WCF 1 vi) and that the things "which are necessary to be known, believed, and observed for salvation, are so clearly propounded and opened . . . that not only the learned, but the unlearned, in a due use of the ordinary means, may attain unto a sufficient knowledge of them" 1 vii. Taking these points together one arrives at the apparent conclusion that a GNC conseqence of these confessional statements is that all the opinions of ancient and modern writers alike must be judged by their conformity to Scripture by GNC before being accepted as authoritative interpretations of Scripture and acceptable for settling disagreements.
If we can critique a writer's work and show his errors of our own analytical technique, then we should do so. Or if it is the case that an earlier author directly addresses that analysis and shows by GNC reasoning from Scripture that the later argument is incorrect, the earlier writer's argument should be adduced either fully, in summary or by reference. If such a presentation is provided, then the earlier writer's arguments can also be tested to see whether the claims made for them actually stand up. Such an approach enables all the arguments pro and con to be tested against Scripture.
An individual's choice to remain ignorant of what is at issue demonstrates a lack of serious concern to examine the matter impartially.
You are presuming that your respondent has chosen to remain ignorant. That presumption is incorrect: your respondent has made no such choice. If their are sound reasons to reject the views put forward I want to know what they are ASAP and I have repeatedly requested you to provide the necesary support from older authors for your statements so that both I and other readers who may be presently ignorant of them my consider the cases presented. To date: you have yet to do so. How am I, or any your other readers to judge whether or not the authorities you cite have a Scripturally valid case against views presented here if you do not present the differing views of those authorities for evaluation? The WCF does not allow us to accept such.
I would also say that a repeated attempt to reduce all biblical questions to a matter of good and necessary consequence shows a failure to understand the way the Scriptures regulate theology.
Once again you argue with an ad hominem. Having abandoned the charismatic movement and the notion of women in unrestricted ministry after realizing that both were Scripturally insupportable, I think you may reasonably assume that if the arguments of earlier writers can show an error in the logic of my analysis and prove Presbyterianism by GNC, that I will joyfully follow where Scripture leads. What I ask is the Confessionally required level of evidence that Scripture does lead where you assert it does. For, as I showed above, a prima facie reading of the WCF leads to the conclusion that it was the Westminster Assembly who reduced the question of how all controversies should be settled to a matter of the use of direct Scriptural statements or GNC from the same.
I would be interested in learning exactly and in detail the reasons why any ordained man here who does not use the above described excerpts from WCF in the paragraph beginning "The WCF explicitly recognizes . . . " to determine their practice in controversy does not do so. If such reasons can be shown to be supported by direct Scriptural statement or GNC consequences thereby I will happily adopt them.
Then perhaps both sides of that historical debate may have failed to recognize the necessary consequence that follows when suasion based on true GNC deductions from the Scripture is spoken into a situation.
It is equally possible that individuals are too fond of their own thought processes when they feel themselves superior to the historical process by which theological conclusions are reached.
Or perhaps I am merely acquainted with the First Epistle of Clement and have noticed that the brotherly admonition I refer to is precisely the method Clement employed to win the Corinthian church back to sanity (cf. 1 Cl. 7:1, 9:1), rather than issuing a diktat on the basis of some interchurch authority? If the immediate sub Apostolic church used the method of moral suasion that I adduce, and they did, then any inference that my advocacy of such methd is unwise ("too fond") when compared against later historical process iremains simply unsupported unless the later argument is supplied for testing.
The moment "it seemed good to the Holy Ghost... to bind" something indifferent in itself, that binding decision carried Divine authority in the context to which it was addressed.
There is an omission of the final part of the clause -- "and us." One would have to deny plenary inspiration to arrive at the conclusion that the decree of the council was the product of inspiration. Those who hold that the Scriptures are
immediately inspired will be safeguarded from jumping to such an unsafe conclusion.
No, I didn't omit the final clause. As you should have seen, I referred to it in the very next paragraph. And I hold that Scriptures are immediately God breathed. And until better instructed by either by full argument, summary or reference, I must note that it appears that the resultant letter - a response which is specifically attributed both to the Holy Spirit and to a body consisting of more than one apostle besides non-Apostles simply cannot be dismissed as less than canonical since it contained material that Holy Spirit is said to have approved of.
Finally with all due respect to all ordained men here to follow the WCF or LBC, may I suggest - if you have the care of souls in the wider world - that you simply cannot afford to do as has been done in this thread and on other places in this board. In the real world, if you descend from outlining arguments solidly based on either directly applicable Scriptures or GN consequences from Scripture to the level of browbeating your people or outsiders with a mixture of ad hominems and appeals to undocumented ecclesiastical authority, the result will be immensely counterproductive. In that world, when your people may encounter situations where someone can allege point a) to be true by direct analysis of Scripture, if the best you can do is rely on unsupported or unreferenced claims. you simply lose credibility when the someone points out that by surpressing the reasons behind your view, you make it impossible for your sheep to test the argument as is Scripturally required. For if the Apostollic principle "...test everything hold fast that which is good. Abstain from every appearance of evil" orignally applied to testing prophecies, how much more must it apply when we consider the opinions of men?
That is the first I have heard of that. Paul did not write Romans as a response letter to combat a specific heresy, but because he could not be in Rome and he desired to preach the gospel to them (Romans 1:11-17). Hence, it is the most "systematic" of his letters because of the occasion (or lack thereof) of its writing.
