In the beginning was logic...

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My tiny two cents: :2cents:

I was thinking about the translation (and interpretation) of "Logos" a couple of weeks ago, and came to the firm conclusion that the fundamental grid to be used in understanding this term is Genesis 1.

I know that's obvious. All of us certainly made that connection from our first days as a Christian, namely, John 1:1-5's grounding in Genesis 1:1.

However, for me, personally, I always made that connection, deemed it too obvious, and started sifting through the literature on Heraclitus and Hellenism, Proverbs 8, Clark's "Logic/Reason", etc.

Like I said, though, it was a couple weeks ago that I just thought, "What's the point Scripture is trying to make?" And John is clearly calling us back, not primarily to Proverbs 8 (and certainly not to Greek philosophy), but to Genesis 1, both with the first two words of his sentence, and with the further emphasis on the word's role in creation.

So that much, at least for me, is "locked in." As far as, speculation aside, *exactly* what "the word" means in the context of Genesis 1, I'm up in the air. I like the thought of "revelation", and clearly that is a major theme of John's (from memory, but I believe John 1:18, John 14:8, et al.), but the emphasis in Genesis seems to be on the creative power of the word.

However, I suppose if you think of "creation" in terms of Romans 1:20, namely, that it reveals the invisible things of the visible God, then you could nicely and Biblically see the theme of "revelation" rooted in Genesis 1 itself, namely, that the Word was performing and executing the creation decrees of the Godhead, and was the principle force in constructing this theater of God's glory.

At least that's where I'm at. Everything else (Proverbs 8, the "word" in the Old Testament) would be a fleshing out of that central exegetical claim. Of course, I'm rather talented at being dead-wrong, so who knows.

:)
 
If the Confession is wrong, David, then it is not up for you to simply assert it's failure at that point, standing apart from a Synod or Council to reform it just for yourself. We might as well jettison the idea of Reformed confessionalism and let each man decide where the Confession needs to be changed for himself.

This is not an argument for the infallibility of the Church but for the authority of the Church. It is arrogant, when the Church has uniformly testified to the interpretation of passage, to insist on a new meaning primarily for the doctrinal epistemology that is undergirding that insistence. Unless you'd like to rescind your subscription to the Confession on who settles such matters then you're the party on the outside of Reformed orthodoxy and not me. I have nothing to defend on this board to uphold the Church's right to settle matters of controversy and not philosophers or academia. Go to an Anabaptist board and make such impious claims all you want there.

Bringing Luther (or Calvin) into your argument does not help your case in the least. They were not inventors of new theology, interpreting the Scriptures on their own and presuming to think their views superior to the testimony of the entire corpus of the Church fathers. They were reformers not revolutionaries.

Hey Rich,

I don't have an argument. Those were just some thoughts I had about the basic framework of things. Thanks for explaining all of that to me. I'm not trying to overthrow confessional orthodoxy!! :handshake: I've only been in a confessional church for half a year so I'm getting used to the way all of this works.

What you said does raise some questions in my mind about "the Church" making decisions at synods and councils. We can't really do that anymore, can we? So just how exactly would some kind of change take place? We could have the testimony of a PCA synod or an RPCNA synod but not a uniform decision by the "Church." So what would happen if one denomination were to uphold a change like the one Clark proposed? That doesn't seem like it would be enough to fit your definition of the necessary Church approval.
 
What you said does raise some questions in my mind about "the Church" making decisions at synods and councils. We can't really do that anymore, can we? So just how exactly would some kind of change take place? We could have the testimony of a PCA synod or an RPCNA synod but not a uniform decision by the "Church." So what would happen if one denomination were to uphold a change like the one Clark proposed? That doesn't seem like it would be enough to fit your definition of the necessary Church approval.

I'm not sure how the mechanics of it might work.

I think part of the reason the Presbyterian Churches keep fragmenting, however, is for the reason of non-Confessionalism. It either occurs because a Church completely departs from the Confession eventually and people feel impelled to leave or, increasingly, people want to take what still amounts to a personal opinion that they've super-added to the Confession and form a Church around it (because all Presbyterians should embrace the WCF and Clarkianism or the WCF and theonomy or the WCF and X,...)

It's not that I don't appreciate the discussion of whether the word might be interpreted in such a fashion but the spirit of the man doing it. Incidentally, I didn't initially quote you and I wasn't addressing you or fully anyone in this thread in my initial post. My issue, though, is that some Presbyterians latch on to some relatively new idea and become so committed on to it that they don't even realize they have become insistent and schismatic to the point that they resemble anabaptists in their willingness to just jettison the entire rest of the Church. Either that or they'll sit in a seat of judgment and call those that Christ has purchased with his blood all sorts of names and, instead of seeking unity, constantly undermine it.

I'm simply amazed at the passion that some give to some of these pet doctrines given the paucity of treatment in Scripture and the lengths they'll go to enforce that view - even if it means saying that our unifying confession is bunk when they don't like it or saying things like: "You know, the Church throughout history has interpreted this as Word but the better translation is Logic...."
 
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