6. A Matter Must Be Regarded As Indifferent In Itself Until Proved Sinful By Scripture. The question may be raised, How are we to decide whether or not a particular matter belongs in the category of things indifferent? In this, as in all other questions of faith and conduct, the Word of God must be our chart and compass. A matter must be regarded as indifferent until proved to be sinful, not
vice versa. A man is regarded as innocent until proved guilty. Nothing could be more false and dangerous than the contention of some religious teachers that a matter must be regarded as sinful until proved to be indifferent. When there is any doubt that the matter is sinful in itself, it must be left to the individual conscience. If the teaching of Scripture about a particular matter appears to be doubtful or obscure, or even seems to be contradictory, this is all the more reason for church assemblies
not to make authoritative pronouncements or laws about such a matter. What God has clearly revealed, let the church confidently enforce. What God has not clearly revealed, let the church not presume to determine. God grant that we may be preserved from trying to have a clearer standard than the Bible, or a more complete set of moral laws than that contained in the Word of God!
Beyond question a great deal of the present insistence on the obligation to live what is called the separated life proceeds from misunderstanding of the Scripture passages dealing with the use of things indifferent. When groups of earnest Christians demand separation from particular things, in themselves indifferent, as the condition of Christian fellowship, they set up a false and unwarranted standard of fellowship, and become guilty of presumption by judging their brethren in those things in which Christ has left them free under God.
V. The Separated Life and the Sufficiency of Scripture
The principle of the sufficiency of Scripture as the standard of faith and conduct is involved in the problem of the separated life. Separation is sometimes demanded from things which Scripture does not declare or imply to be sinful. Sometimes the attempt is made to show that some of these things or practices are sinful by bringing in a secondary authority, such as experience, physical science, the so-called Christian consciousness. Experience or science may show good reasons for abstaining from certain acts or habits, but experience or science can never of itself be binding on the conscience of man.
Moreover, those who wish to introduce science as an additional authority always speak as if it were a very simple matter to ascertain what science has to say on any particular question. They always speak as if somewhere there were a sort of scientific pope who could utter
ex cathedra the final, united, unquestionable voice of science. They seem to presuppose that the voice of science can be heard, speaking with authoritative accents, by simply consulting a few volumes in the public library. The truth is, however, that “science” is an abstraction. There is in the world today no such thing as the voice of science; there are only the voices of a multitude of scientists, and they are anything but agreed among themselves. Now who is to decide which of these many voices is to be accepted as the authoritative voice of science? One scientist, a professor in a great university, states that years of research have failed to demonstrate that a certain practice shortens life. Another scientist, of equal scientific standing, maintains the contrary position. Who is to decide which represents the authoritative voice of “science”? All too often those who wish to place science alongside of Scripture as a standard of faith and conduct wish at the same time to be the judges of what is science; those who hold certain views they regard as scientists; all others they reject as being prejudiced or otherwise untrustworthy. Can any pope or church assembly decide just what kinds of science — the opinions of just which scientists — are authoritative and therefore, along with Scripture, binding on the conscience of man? No, in matters of science every person must decide for himself. And even if certain scientific theories are believed to be true, they cannot be binding on the conscience. We must beware of the sin mentioned in the Larger Catechism, no. 105, of “making men the lords of our faith and conscience.”
All human authority, however expert or learned, is fallible, and therefore cannot bind the conscience. Science may show that certain things are
harmful to the body, but science can never show that anything is
sinful. Scripture alone can show that anything, for example a particular course of conduct, is sinful. It is true that the light of nature, or the moral law written on the heart of man (Rom 2:14-15), shows that certain acts, such as murder, are wrong; but the light of nature does not tell us anything about morality
in addition to what is revealed in Scripture; Scripture is a fuller revelation than natural revelation and includes all of the latter and much besides; therefore when Scripture does not declare or imply that a certain practice is sinful, we cannot turn from Scripture to natural revelation for fuller light on the matter. (In this connection it may be remarked that the modernist notion that all human knowledge and science is a divine revelation in the same sense that Scripture is a divine revelation, is utterly false and destructive. Natural revelation is a provision of God by which the heathen, who do not have the light of Scripture, may know something of His power, divinity and moral law. It is insufficient for salvation, but leaves men without excuse and provides a standard by which those who lived and died without the light of special revelation shall be judged. Rom. 1:18-20; 2:12-16.)
Scripture of course teaches that it is ordinarily the duty of Christians to abstain from what is harmful to the body (this is not always the duty of Christians, for there may be circumstances when loyalty to Christ requires that our own physical welfare be disregarded, or even that, rather than deny the Lord, we suffer martyrdom and allow the body to be entirely destroyed); the sixth commandment, “Thou shalt not kill,” is stated by the Shorter Catechism to forbid “the taking of our own life, or the life of our neighbor, unjustly, or whatsoever tendeth thereunto” (no. 69). This commandment is binding on every man, and the interpretation of it given in the Catechism is doubtless the correct one. It thus becomes binding on the conscience of the Christian to abstain from that which tends toward the unjust destruction of his own life, or that of his neighbor, that is, from that which is harmful to the body. But we should note that the decision whether a particular act is
harmful must be made by the individual concerned. Science is never infallible; it cannot bind the conscience;
therefore the individual Christian must judge of the statements of science, and the statements of science must not judge the Christian. To deny this means to make science, instead of God, the Lord of the conscience. No alleged “findings” of science can be formulated into an authoritative list of harmful things or acts. The relation between the sufficiency of Scripture as the standard of faith and conduct and the problem of the separated life must be summarized as follows:
- The Christian is required by God to separate from what is sinful.
- Scripture alone can demonstrate that a given course of conduct is sinful.
- Natural revelation cannot be regarded as a fuller revelation than Scripture, or as coordinate with Scripture in any sense whatever.
- It is possible that science or experience may show that certain conduct is harmful.
- Science or experience can never show that anything is sinful.
- Scripture teaches that what is really harmful is ordinarily sinful.
- The decision whether science or experience shows that particular conduct is harmful must be made by the individual concerned, not by other persons.
- Church assemblies may not issue authoritative regulations based in whole or in part on any other standard than Scripture.
To depart from these principles is to deny the sufficiency of Scripture as the standard of faith and conduct and to elevate experience or science to the position of an additional authority coordinate with Scripture. This may be illustrated as follows: Science, let us say, has demonstrated that in certain conditions the eating of large amounts of certain foods is harmful to the body; this does not prove that the use of those foods is sinful in itself; science, moreover, cannot tell precisely where lies the border line between harmless use and harmful use. Scripture requires abstinence from that which is harmful, but teaches that no material thing is sinful in itself (Rom. 14:4). In the very nature of the case the individual concerned must be the judge of the extent of legitimate use in such a case, so far as his conscience is concerned. Some may say that the individual’s physician is the proper judge in such a case but, even so, judgment is still left with the individual; he is free to follow or to reject his physician’s advice, and also free to change or dismiss his physician. For an ecclesiastical judicatory to assert that science declares the matters in question to be harmful, therefore they are under all circumstances sinful, amounts to denying the sufficiency of Scripture and making human science an additional, coordinate authority.
If a Christian suffering from some bodily pain, takes more aspirin than is good for him, he may by this do something which is harmful to the body; he may even be doing something which, though not sinful in itself, is in that particular instance a sin against God; but the fact that it is possible for a person to commit sin by excessive use of aspirin by no means warrants a church assembly in enacting a rule limiting or prohibiting the use of aspirin by church members; because the use of aspirin is in itself morally indifferent, in the nature of the case the extent of legitimate use is a matter between the person and his Lord. No third party can be admitted to determine the question,
so far as the morality of the matter is concerned. A physician may give good advice concerning the care of the body and the proper dosage of medicines, but he has nothing to do with the consciences of his patients. No fellow Christian, no bishop, pope, or ecclesiastical assembly can step in and say: “So-and-so many grains of aspirin constitute a legitimate medicinal dose, provided you have so-and-so many degrees of headache; but at that precise point aspirin ceases to be morally indifferent and its use becomes sinful.”
Many persons today are ready to take the real or alleged “findings” of science (or rather of certain scientists) that certain material things or certain habits are harmful to the body, and on this basis alone to affirm confidently that those things or those habits are necessarily sinful in themselves. To do this is not only to fall into Gnostic error, but to repudiate the sufficiency of the Word of God as the standard of morality, and to make fallible, human knowledge an authoritative standard of conduct.
VI. The Separated Life and the Nature and Extent of the Authority of the Christian Church
In the formulation of creedal doctrine, the Christian church is strictly limited by Scripture. The church has the right to require of her officers and members assent to everything that can be shown to be taught or implied in Scripture, but the church does not have the right to add anything to what is contained in Scripture. The authority of the church is ministerial and declarative, not legislative; it is derived from Christ, not original in the church itself; it is no an absolute authority, but one limited and regulated by a definite revelation, the Scriptures. From these considerations it follows that the church has no right to go beyond Scripture and compile lists of specific things or acts, in themselves indifferent, which experience or science purport to show to be deleterious and which are therefore alleged to be wrong for the Christian to use or to do.
There are some Christian denominations which actually single out certain specific acts, in themselves indifferent, and require of church members abstinence from those things as a condition of membership. In some cases this requirement of abstinence is written into the denomination’s creedal doctrine, and members are not merely required to abstain from the particular things involved, but are also required to express their assent to the rightfulness of this requirement of abstinence. This tendency, which assumes various forms in various circles, is a very unhealthy one, for it tends to give people the notion that the church can, by its own authority, legislate for the lives of its members, and even go beyond Scripture in requiring of them abstinence from particular things which are in themselves indifferent.
Of course the church may and should require its members to abstain from everything that can be proved by Scripture to be sinful. The breach of such abstinence can be justly censured by ecclesiastical judicatories when the fact is proved. But the church has not authority to require abstinence from things indifferent. The church has no authority to usurp the functions of the individual Christian conscience and decide for her members concerning the use of things indifferent. For the church to censure her members for doing that which cannot be proved from Scripture, without the use of any additional authority, to be sinful, is to exceed the limits of legitimate church authority. At the point where a secondary becomes necessary, the matter automatically passes from the church to the court of the individual conscience,
precisely because God alone is Lord of the conscience, and human authority cannot bind the conscience. Let all church courts beware of committing the sin which Spurgeon described as “violating the crown rights of God who alone is Lord of the consciences of men.”
Even though a church member may have committed an act which in the
opinion of the members of a judicatory would be sinful if committed in like circumstances by themselves, still the judicatory has no right to censure such a person unless it can be proved from Scripture that the act was sinful; just as in criminal law a jury may be of the opinion that a defendant has committed a wrong, but has no right to convict him unless the evidence proves that he has violated the law of the land. A church judicatory may not decide cases by opinion, but must decide according to the law and the evidence.
It will be seen to follow from the foregoing that just as the church has no authority to go beyond Scripture in legislating concerning particular things which are in themselves indifferent, so the church has no authority to censure her members for any use of things indifferent
unless that use can be proved to involve the violation of an express or implied command of Scripture. It is not sufficient to show that a command of Scripture may have been violated, or that an act has been committed which might, under some circumstances, involve the violation of a command of Scripture. To be justly liable to ecclesiastical censure, a church member must be charged with a particular act, committed at a particular time and place, and concerning this act two things must be proved: (1) it must be proved that the act was actually committed by the person, and at the time and place specified in the charge; (2) it must be proved that the act, in the circumstances under which it was committed, involved the violation of a command of Scripture, that is, that it was sinful. Church discipline must always deal with
real offenses, not with the legitimate and conscientious use of things indifferent. Its function is to remedy actual wrongs already committed, not to prevent the commission of wrongs by enforcing abstinence from things which are in themselves not sinful but indifferent.
I love that stupid banana.
(although tan doesn't actually look that bad).
