This Wednesday I will be speaking in Norman,OK about my journey of faith, my deconstruction, and reconstruction of the doctrine of Scripture. As something to chew on in the mean time I hope this will begin to get your thoughts moving as preparation for Wednesdays discussion.So here it is. An excerpt essay from my upcoming book. (P.S. Please forgive any grammar issues, I haven’t given it to my future editor.)
Christological is a better term than Biblical when noting the theological goodness or acceptance of a thing. Using the term Biblical in the way we often do to establish the veracity of something is idolatrous because it sets the Bible as the foundation for truth (Which is based on the epistemology of Classic Foundationalism) and for the Christian faith. While many Evangelicals do not see this as a problem, this replaces the unique role of Christ as both the foundation of our faith and the source from which all truth flows. Christ should be the source of our faith, as it historically has been. I recall once hearing a theologian say something to the effect of, truth is not a thing or an object, but truth is a person, that person is Christ. There can be no other foundation than Christ; once there is we create “Christianity” with the Bible as our God, which ironically then becomes something entirely different than Christianity. When the Bible is central to ones faith something has been replaced – Christ has had his throne stolen. Evangelicals have replaced their King with another, the Bible. As I see it, this is the underlying idolatry of using the term Biblical to denote anything from who is “in” or “out” of the faith, to who has a justified or “good” theology. When I use the term “Christological” I am not necessarily referring to the study of the work and person of Christ so much as I am using it to denote the underlying reality, truth, veracity and accuracy of the cosmos as created by God. When I say something is Christological I am making a truth claim, I am saying that it is accurate to reality that it is good, and reflective to who God is. I am placing Christ as the rule of faith and practice. I am making Christ and ultimately the Trinity the measuring stick, so to speak, by which we measure all other things. One unconsciously uses the words that best describe what one truly believes and trusts. However, one must be aware that “bad terminology always leads to bad theology.” By using the term Biblical, which suggests a foundation based on the bible instead of Christ, we are making plain that our belief and trust is actually in the Bible, and not God. It is my suggestion and proposal that Christological should replace the term Biblical in daily use.
What is ironic about all of this is using the term Biblical in the way we are now probably is not even biblical. I will end here with a quote: “Sad, indeed, would the whole matter be, if the Bible had told us everything God meant us to believe. But herein is the Bible itself greatly wronged. It nowhere lays claim to be regarded as the Word, the Way, the Truth. The Bible leads us to Jesus, the inexhaustible, the ever-unfolding Revelation of God. It is Christ “in whom are hid all the treasures of wisdom and knowledge,” not the Bible, save as leading to him. And why are we told that these treasures are hid in him who is the Revelation of God? Is it that we should despair of finding them and cease to seek them?”
George MacDonald