Schrodinger's Theology

This is a conversational response to a post over at Ken Schenck's blog, "The war of the 2 natures". As Mr Schenck writes, "After reading about the crazy battles that resulted in what we now call orthodoxy, there seem two possible conclusions: 1) God was behind the scenes making sure the right answers won out or 2) it's all a crap shoot and orthodox Christianity is a sham." I don't think that either of those statements represents the actual situation in which we find ourselves. To make this post accessible I'll back up the conversation enough to be self-introducing ... 

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Knowing God may be the highest goal of human thought. And there are countless people who have sought knowledge of God in nature, in meditation, from prophets or even from the Messiah, and (in absence of these) from holy texts. But eventually we come to a problem: after we run through all the material that we can learn from those sources, we have some questions that none of our sources directly answers. We may get hints or glimpses. We may get likelihood. We may even get strong probability. But once we have gone beyond what is spelled out by trusted materials, we rarely get certainty. I'll come back to this point as I wrap up. 

This isn't a new thought to the modern age; even in the apostolic age St Paul wrote that "we see through a glass, darkly." While that won't stop us trying to see, it rightly leads to humility about the precision of our speculations. It's like the recognition of significant digits in science: it's not right to claim a precision that outpaces our data. (Deeper dive on that.) 

With the common claim that "the winners write the history books," is the underlying cynicism justified in the case of Christian beliefs? What do we make of the early controversies in the church? 

I'd like to look at some of the ways in which the church has approached questions, going from more conclusive to less conclusive: 

• Some questions were addressed by Jesus during his earthly ministry. Almost all Christians consider these to be definitive answers. 
• Some questions were addressed by the apostles during their lifetimes. Since they knew Jesus in person, these are often considered definitive answers, especially when the answers were included in the canon of Scripture. Granted, some groups allow variation for how firmly various New Testament writings are accepted, with some groups having different status for the once-disputed books of the New Testament from the days when the canon of Scripture was still under review. 
• Some questions are addressed directly by Scripture and there is only one view in Scripture. 
• Some questions had clear and widespread support from the earliest church while the opposing view was a late-introduced novelty. There was an ancient test whether beliefs had been held "everywhere, always, and by all," with the understanding that there could be asterisks for outliers, while providing a framework to objectively identify those outliers. 
• Some questions are not addressed directly by Scripture, and are instead inferred. These are answered based on a preponderance of evidence from Scripture and compatibility with known facts. 
• And some controversies are not answered directly by Scriptures, and the preponderance of evidence is not clean or not conclusive. 

From the earlier approaches, the church of Christ has a great body of teachings which are held solidly, without being open to the charge that it's merely a winner's privilege. 

In the later categories we get into more contested territory. This tends to happens when we are asking questions that Scripture never directly addresses, for example the relationship of the human and divine within Christ. It is especially problematic when we are asking questions that Jesus never addressed, that were never considered during the apostolic age, and where the earliest church is silent. In these cases we are left with a handful of tangential verses as we try to infer where they lead, with little to no guidance from trusted sources. I'll come back to that. 

Mr Schenck notes that "[t]he century between Nicaea (325) and Chalcedon (451) primarily argued over the two natures of Christ". I've mentioned before that I mark Chalcedon (451 A.D.) as the date when the "one holy catholic and apostolic church" became damaged; as a result the answers to those doctrinal questions (and new questions since) have been problematic. (Deeper dive on that.) After Chalcedon, those particular points of orthodoxy were upheld less by consensus and more by risk of excommunication. In my opinion, that is the point at which we ought to have admitted we outran our data, and come back to "seeing through a glass darkly." I would not say that every view advanced on the topic held equal validity; some views ultimately might have been considered out-of-bounds. But there is room for a collegial approach where the School of Alexandria has one view and the School of Rome holds another, on how the human and divine interact. 

To go back to the point I mentioned at the outset: We have some questions that none of the holy texts directly answers. We may get hints or glimpses. We may get likelihood. We may even get strong probability. But beyond what is spelled out by trusted materials, we no longer get certainty. The issue to me is not whether the right or wrong arguments won out; it's why we define "orthodoxy" so much in terms of issues that are beyond the scope of what we were given, where there is no indication that either Christ or his apostles considered the question (as we frame it) important. The problem goes deeper than whether we have the right answers to the questions we are asking. I'm fairly sure our relentless pursuit of non-Scriptural questions means we are not pursuing the best questions. 

Knowing God may be the highest goal of human thought. But are we pursuing that knowledge through how God has revealed himself, and letting his self-revelation set the curriculum for what we learn? What would happen if we tried? I believe we are called to the theology that Christ has taught, and the orthodoxy that the apostles proclaimed. 

"Unless the Father Draws Them" --

I've recently begun reading Theology Pathfinder, and what I've seen so far indicates an insightful and edifying writer. I wanted to add a comment on the recent(ish) post on election, "No One Can Come to Jesus Unless the Father Draws Them: Two Views on election in John 6". While I'd recommend reading the original post, I'll sum up for those who don't have the time right now: the two views presented are Calvinism's irresistible grace, or limiting the scope to Jesus' immediate contemporaries: drawing then-faithful Jews to the Messiah. As with any summary, that has of necessity lost all the supporting detail so again I'd recommend at least browsing the original.

I wanted to follow up by describing another view, beginning with a quote that Mr DeMars mentions in support of the second view:

It is written in the Prophets: "And they will all be taught by God." Everyone who has listened to and learned from the Father comes to me. (John 6:45)

As he notes, this is Jesus' own continuation of the comment that no one can come to him unless the Father draws them, explaining what he means by that. Jesus informs us about the scope of who is drawn: all are taught by God. This is promise is not limited to Jews who were contemporaries of Jesus in the first century. It is a promise for all in the Messianic age. It is one of the crowning blessings of the Messianic age, and (original setting, Isaiah 54) is about a restored relationship with God that is cause for rejoicing, and will bring people together in peace.

Jesus also explains to us how God chooses to draw us: God draws us by teaching us. It is unfortunate that the modern experience of school -- of being taught -- is so often boring and (too often) irrelevant. But still some of us may relate to the experience of a teacher who understood us, recognized us, valued us, made sure we didn't fall behind. We may remember a teacher who valued the lessons, loved knowledge and wisdom, and whose enthusiasm passed along the value of what was loved. It is a joyful thing to be taught by God, something that adds depth to our days, wisdom to our lives. There are passages of Scripture where we can see delight in God's wisdom, or in our daily lives we can see how sticking tight to God's teachings is a shield against so many harms. God's wisdom crowns people with integrity and righteousness. In that vein, I read that everyone who has listened to and learned from the Father comes to him.

Fellowship and Theology

If "theology" has to do with understanding God, then I would advocate the view that fellowship is a necessary part of theological studies. I mean this in several of the obvious senses: that fellowship is a rightful topic of study; that practicing fellowship is part of coming to understand God; that fellowship is an intrinsic result of knowing God.

Theology is our pursuit of the greatest treasure of knowledge: knowing God. Along the way we'll be drawn together to reflect on each others' insights and share our own. The more we understand God, the fewer strangers there are in the world. The closer someone walks with God, the closer we walk with each other also. Consider that Jesus sent his disciples out to teach in pairs and so fostered friendships among his disciples. Consider that St Paul would passionately plead with people by name to set aside personal differences, and considered it a worthy use of his letters to spend time greeting people by name. True love of God is not something we can do without knowing our neighbors' names.

The Concept of Trinity as a Venn Diagram, and Divine Simplicity

I hope any reader does not find it too irreverent to use a Venn diagram in discussing the nature of God. Yesterday many Christians celebrated Trinity Sunday, and in recognition of that I'd like to take the wording and structure of the Trinitarian portion of the Athanasian Creed (named in honor of Athanasius) and interpret it as a Venn diagram.

I have taken the liberty of adding the phrase "self-existing" to the portion describing the Father, making explicit the self-existence of the Father in contrast to the portions describing the origins of the Son and Spirit. Otherwise, the material is directly from the Athanasian Creed.

I'd like to add a note about a philosophical teaching called divine simplicity. Briefly stated in simple form, that view holds that God cannot be composed or complex because the fact of complexity implies a prior cause in order to get that complex effect. Consider the implied question "Who made God like that?", and the implication that if there is a straight answer to that question as asked, then God would not be God. Without going into the full argument here, I'd like to say that the Venn diagram -- or better said, the earlier creed on which it's based -- can clarify one thing about that: if only the Father is self-existing, and the Father is the ultimate origin of Son and Spirit*, then God made Himself like that. Of all the follow-up questions that come from the idea of God as Trinity, the one I find most useful in increasing our understanding of God is "Why?" If we start with the view that God's will has a purpose within God's own wisdom and nature, and if we consider that the Son and Spirit came about by the Father's will, then "Why?" is a legitimate question. And the answer, the best I can discern so far from Christian Scripture, is to reach out to us: to be God with us and God in us.

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* For those who hold the view that the Spirit proceeds from the Father, the Father alone is the necessary prerequisite for the Spirit. For those who hold the view that the Spirit proceeds from the Father and the Son, still the Father is the ultimate origin of the Spirit, as the Father is the sole origin of the Son.

The Gospel According To Matthew

Because of some unexpected health issues, this post has been pre scheduled and I may not be able to respond to comments.  Posting may be sporadic during this time of troubled health.  It has also been 'written' with speech recognition software. Please pardon any sound-alike words that escape me as I proofread.

How are we saved?  There is a lot of debate over that in Christian circles.  There is tension (at least) between Paul and James.  But what about the actual apostles who knew Jesus in person and were among his followers?

If you read the Gospel of Matthew and trace the message there, the theme that stands out is mercy. When people come to Jesus for healing, what they ask for is mercy.  When people come to him for forgiveness, what they ask for is mercy. When people challenged him whether it was right to heal on the Sabbath, he told them to go and learn what it means that God desires mercy, not sacrifice.

In his preaching, he begins his preaching career with the beatitudes, including this: Blessed are the merciful, for they will be shown mercy.  Towards the end of the Sermon On The Mount, he makes sure we have not missed his point: With the measure you use, it will be measured back to you. In his famous teaching of the Last Judgment, people are received by God (or not) only based on whether they have shown mercy to other people.

There is a new covenant described in Matthew, one for all the world rather than just one nation: a covenant of forgiveness. At times I wonder if we aren't supposed to understand that every one, everywhere is forgiven for every sin.  And all that remains is that we show each other mercy.

It is natural to wonder (based on our current debates), doesn't that mean we are earning our salvation? I think it means that the whole world finds itself in the middle of Jesus's parable of the unmerciful servant: the forgiveness was already given to us, but our actions can cause us to lose it.

Does a covenant really work that way?  If you consider the old covenant at Sinai under Moses, there was in fact provision for the forgiveness of sins.  The most serious offense was considered to be idolatry, because it puts you outside the covenant under which sins are forgiven.  In the new covenant, the equivalent would be refusing mercy to someone who asked for it.  It's not merely a sin, it's a rejection of the covenant where sins are forgiven.

How are we saved?  God has shown us all mercy.  That is how we are saved.

Good in human nature: Intro, and Part I

Over at Undivided Looking, Aron has been pondering original sin, and the question of good and evil in human nature. I've been considering that question -- both the thoughts over at his post, and an older one here in which many of you had chimed in on the comment thread, and had made some interesting observations.

It looks like, to get the whole picture, we'll have to consider

a) Are we intrinsically good in our nature (and what does that mean anyway?),
b) Are we good for a purpose in relation to others?
c) How do those pieces fit together?

Seriously, books have been written on those subjects ... and rather than try to cram a book into a blog post, I'll hit the highlights.

First, why break it down like that? If we ask, "Is something good?", we can either mean "Is it good for a purpose?" or "Is it good in itself?"* We don't always like the idea of being "good for a purpose" - it makes us sound like tools, and we've all met people whose only interest is in using us for some purpose of their own. Isn't there a possibility that we're simply good in our own right, without "purpose" coming into it with the need to be used or useful for some other agenda? So this post starts with the question whether we're good in our own right, "intrinsically good". (The next post on the topic is drafted; it was split out from this because it was becoming too long for a single reading. So next time picks up with the question of whether we're good for a purpose in relation to others, and looks at some connections that I find interesting in that light.)

Is human nature intrinsically good?

If we accept that creation is "very good in every way", at least in its unspoiled state, then there has to be a sense in which human nature, in that state, is intrinsically good. Thinking through examples of things that I consider good in themselves, apart from any use or purpose, I find myself considering things like the stars, the ocean, the forests, or (I live in a salt-marsh on a coast) the beauty of the bayou. I find myself thinking -- especially this time of year -- of wild flowers that brighten the fields and pathways, thicker and more numerous than stars, and displays of morning glories climbing every available post and tree so that I suspect the fabled hanging gardens of Babylon might have looked like that. Some things -- sunshine on the water, sunrise on the clouds -- are beautiful enough that human language has trouble describing them. We find ourselves reaching for a more profound, divine language: "There is no language where their voice is not heard."

Is human nature capable of drawing out reactions like that? It should be ... if we fit in with nature, it should be.

Why do those other things draw out that kind of reactions in us? I suspect it's because they remind us of God. To the extent that another thing reminds us of God, and is filled with the glory of God, it draws out that reaction. I think that's one reason why David's Psalm 19 has been such an enduring, often-quoted work for not just hundreds of years but for thousands of years at this point: he captured that wisp of thought and put it down, that thing that we sense when we view nature, and that a poet senses so acutely in watching human words fail at the same job: "The heavens declare the glory of God ... there is no speech or language where their voice is not heard."

I mentioned the hanging gardens of Babylon earlier. It was reckoned as one of the wonders of the ancient world. But here's the thing: it wasn't a wonder merely because it was ancient. It was a wonder because, with the help of man, nature surpassed even the normal wonder of nature. All of the ancient wonders of the world were instances where we could rightly look at man -- at human nature -- and experience wonder, where we could see that there is a sense in which we also reflect the glory of God.

But we're so fond of the thought of being good in ourselves -- of being intrinsically good, worthy of admiration -- that thought can corrupt us. The rest of nature is not so self-conscious. That self-reflection draws us into narcissism and idolatry, and threatens to undermine its own goodness.

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* This conversation ties closely to the different basic ideas of ethics and what makes an action good.

Jesus and the humanizing of morality

The kingdom of heaven is like a farmer. Or maybe it's like a man who had two sons. Or a woman baking bread. Or a fisherman with his nets.

Jesus' teachings are very down-to-earth - literally. Where we have some sort of expectation that a Great Teacher should transcend this world, take us elsewhere in our thoughts, Jesus resolutely refused that path. Whenever the conversation turned to great abstract principles, we could expect one thing: a parable was following. His parables did more than illustrate the lessons. He spoke as if the holy belongs in this world.

According to centuries upon centuries of Christian teaching, this is the ultimate meaning of Jesus' life, death, and resurrection: that the holy belongs in this world. Holiness is not meant to be an abstract. It is not meant to be an otherworldly thing. It is not located uniquely in monasteries or other outposts of rejecting this world. It is located firmly within this world. There is nothing important about holiness that cannot be described in terms of growing seed, vineyards, and wedding feasts.

Some see the parables as a kind of mystery. But the parables also seem to be instances of incarnation: in a parable, a general principle takes on reality, takes on flesh and blood, and walks in this world in a recognizable form. So the direction of Christ's teaching is not to take this world as raw material that needs to be turned into the finished product of an abstraction. The direction of Christ's teaching is the opposite: to take the raw material of abstraction and turn it into the finished product of a God-filled reality. The ultimate understanding of God's truth does not take the form of a properly-classified entry in our theological system; it touches our world.

When an expert in the Law of Moses tested Jesus, asking after the most important commandment, he got his answer: Love the Lord your God, and the second like it: love your neighbor as yourself. But when the lawyer asked who was his neighbor, he found out the truth about that great commandment. That great commandment was not great because it could take a leading place in the catalog in the law-books. It was great because it was the one that could live in us and move us to help the traveler we meet along the way. It is a great commandment because it takes the vital core of the image of God -- that is, love -- and places it back inside us. Love is the nature of God. For this reason, love is the greatest of the virtues, and love is the greatest of the commandments. When we love our neighbor, the word of God is incarnated in us and our actions. When Jesus repeats his refrain, "The kingdom of God is like ...", every down-to-earth story he tells invites us to fill in the rest of the story with our own lives, our own children, and our own neighbors, to see it all as part of the kingdom of heaven.

Jesus and the meaning of morality

The question at the core of morality is this: What makes something right or wrong? Some people talk about rules, some people talk about principles, some people talk about consequences, some talk about virtue. Some people have no restrictions other than "harm none" -- a good desire, to be sure, but a fairly low bar. Setting the highest goal as being "harmless" reads like the part in the Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy where the encyclopedia entry on our planet reads, in its entirety: Harmless. Talk about being damned by faint praise. Granted that "harmless" would be an improvement for some, it's never going to even aspire to positive good.

Some people are suspicious of rules, seeing them as stifling and oppressive. And here is a conflict that comes up time and again: if the rules have no regard for the people, then sooner or later the "no regard for the people" part will make the rules themselves into an immoral force. Rules have the advantage of making people aware of various all-too-predictable ways they can cause harm unintentionally. Even at their best, rules often amount to little more than a serious exercise in considering how to be harmless. Again, granted that we want to give serious thought to how to be harmless, it still leaves us short of doing anything positive.

Here as we look at moraltiy we see some implications of Jesus' teaching on truth. He challenged the generally-accepted idea that truth is impersonal. If truth is impersonal, if the highest reality is impersonal, then principles are more important than people, and morality will put principles above people. But if truth is personal, if ultimate reality is personal, then morality is like the lilies of the field: it beautifies the world rather than enslaving it, beautifies a soul rather than depersonalizing it. In Jesus' teaching, morality returns the value to the world, rather than moving it to another impersonal realm.

Jesus challenged our thinking about morality when he named the highest of all good rules as first, loving God with all our heart, mind, soul, and strength; and second, loving our neighbor as ourselves. If love of God and neighbor is the height of morality, then morality is personal. Love also shows us the way forward to something a little better than being harmless. Paul expounded on Jesus' insight, connecting the dots for his readers: If love does no harm to its neighbor, then love is the fulfillment of the law. We had the answer all along: God's law is written on our hearts.

For those fond of rules, what is the place of the code of moral law? At one point, Jesus makes it explicit that a specific law was made simply for the benefit of humanity: "The Sabbath was made for man, not man for the Sabbath." This particular law was made for us and for our benefit. Of the other moral laws, all of them can be placed under the headings of "love of God" and "love of neighbor." If we view the laws this way, then all laws are made -- and kept -- in full recognition of the person or persons intended to benefit by them. The thought that rules were made for our benefit does not cancel them or make them useless and outdated, but instead shows that they are rightly understood as ways to benefit each other. It shows that using laws as a measuring-stick for moral superiority was always an abuse, that spiritual one-upmanship and cosmic tattletale were always an immoral use of morality.

Jesus' teaching made a connection between love of God and love of neighbor. On the view that humanity is, in a real sense, made in God's image, then it is impossible to separate the two. Morality, then, recognizes all of humanity on the simple basis of that image of God that we share. It follows that all humanity is included, even enemies, so that we are challenged to bless those who curse us, pray for those who persecute us, and repay evil done towards us with good done towards others.

Jesus and the meaning of truth

Truth is the reflection of reality. To know the truth is to grasp the meaning of things, to understand the nature of what exists. Truth is the goal of wisdom, the reward of insight, the culmination of scholarship. The greatest minds of all ages have pursued truth. Some say that it is to know the mind of God.

Truth has been more than a minor pursuit in the history and cultures of mankind. Philosophy and religion, education and scholarship have all reached for it. The way in which people thought of truth framed the way they interacted with the world. To some schools, truth was something that transcended this world – and something that people had to transcend this world to understand. When truth was seen as transcendent, this world was seen as an illusion or an obstacle, something relatively valueless. Each view of truth had its own implications. If truth is impersonal, then the personal – human beings – are less valued. If truth is dispassionate, then feelings may not be trustworthy; they may not even be relevant. If truth is ruthless, then there is not much for mercy or compassion.

Jesus’ disciples reported him saying something that would frame the quest for reality in an entirely different way. They reported him as saying, “I am the truth.”

This poses a different challenge to each of the different ways of thinking about truth, so that different people would be shocked by this for different reasons. Those who thought of truth as a transcendent thing for the pristine realms of pure thought– these would be offended by the idea of truth walking the lowly soil of this world. Those who thought of truth as impersonal would speak of truth in sentences beginning “It is”, rather than “I am.” Jesus challenged the idea that the ultimate reality was impersonal, that people were irrelevant in the quest for truth. This last thought – that ultimate reality might be personal rather than impersonal – has far-reaching implications in our thoughts about ethics and morality.

But regardless of which particular thought about truth was being challenged, almost all would be shocked by a particular human laying personal claim to such a key place in the knowledge of reality. There has been much made of the fact that this saying is recorded in the fourth gospel -- the one likely written between sixty and seventy years after the events recorded, as far distant from that day as World War II is from ours. Still, it bears noticing that from the first of the gospels to the last of the gospels, all four gospels are essentially biographies. All four defined what should be passed along, what should be known, as Jesus.

Jesus and the meaning of holiness

Holiness has never been adequately defined. Some define it as separation, as in a separation from the profane. Some define it as dedication or consecration to use in God's service. These definitions do not even come close to describing the impressions that surround us when we perceive the Holy. The best definition I have yet heard is that holiness means being indwelt by the glory and presence of God. This, at least, captures some part of the profound beauty, awe, and wonder that we typically sense in the presence of the Holy.

There is no doubt some reason for those who see holiness as a separation from the profane. The ancient call was to "Come out from among them and be separate." Many Christians will think of the ancient Jewish Temple and tabernacle with their careful regulations for purity and separation. Still, here again in the Temple and the tabernacle we definitely see places that are indwelt by the glory and presence of God. They were special places to come, places where even the omnipresent God was specially and particularly present for his people -- or perhaps just particularly evident and accessible, places where God had chosen to reveal himself, chosen to meet with his people.

In Jesus, we see the presence of God on earth in a way that we have never seen before. The very idea that here in a man we have Emmanuel, God With Us, threatens and challenges the idea of a separation between sacred and profane. While the the previous separation of sacred and profane protected the sacred by giving it its own dedicated and inviolable space, it also in some measure protected the profane by confining the Holy. Here in Jesus of Nazareth we see holiness moving to challenge the profane on its own ground. As the ancient Temple was destroyed and there was apparently no more safe place for holiness, God had left the Temple and had made his people into the living stones of the new temple. Now there was no more safe place for the profane.

In Jesus, we see God's movement clearly: he sought out people that were by no means holy, and these he called to a new life. The low, the profane, the outcast, the vile and despicable of society -- these were the ones he sought out. Holiness did not depend on the beauty of the raw materials but on the power of the love of God. Out of people who were nothing, he created us and called us to be holy. And for these redeemed, the call was not "Come out and be separate," but instead "Go into all the world."

Jesus and the meaning of orthodoxy

When we think about orthodoxy, we are considering the whole world of what is right, what is true, what is known - and the realm of accepted opinion. Our own thoughts are tested against other thinkers throughout the millennia; and all thoughts are tested back against the life and teachings of Jesus.

Where should we start? It is easy to become boxed in by what has come before us. Even those of us who are determined not to be confined to the thoughts of previous ages often find ourselves drawn into the same conversation. And this is right; this line of thought, this struggle to understand did not begin with us.

For a Christian, the question is always this: what really happened with Jesus? Who was he? What did he say, and what did he mean by it? What do we learn from it and what do we do with it?

For the earliest Christians, their mission was to teach Christ. Those who had known Christ directly traveled the known world with their message. The first guarantee of orthodoxy was having known Christ, and, by definition, what was taught by those who knew Christ was orthodoxy. The disciples did not go forth as sages or gurus, but as witnesses of the extraordinary life and teachings of Jesus. The early Christian writings reflect this in their talk of first-hand knowledge, of witness and of testimony, "What we have seen with our eyes, what we have looked at and our hands have touched, this we proclaim." There was no other opinion they had to agree with or expectation they needed meet other than the reality of Christ as they had known him.

It was important for the early Christian community that their message did not change from what the apostles had told them. There was emphasis on holding onto the same truth they had known from the beginning, passing on the same thing they had received. All this we see in the early writings now collected into the New Testament, where those who had not known Christ in the flesh emphasized the importance of carefully preserving the message as originally given them by the first witnesses. We see it also outside the New Testament, where there was an early Christian community devoted to making sure the teachings stayed true to the message once given. For these Christians, the guarantee of truthfulness was that the teaching matched what the apostles taught.

In time, the meaning of orthodoxy shifted. Instead of meaning what the apostles taught, it meant what the previous generation had taught. If each generation was careful, that worked out well; but sometimes not so much. Over time, orthodoxy came to mean not what we knew of Christ through those with firsthand knowledge, nor simply remaining faithful to what those first ones had taught and so could be known with reasonable certainty. In time, orthodoxy also came to mean the allowable interpretations determined by councils of scholars, church leaders, and statesmen. At its best, orthodoxy meant the accumulation of the riches of thought and insights of the ages. At its worst, it meant devotion and enthusiasm shackled by the limits of an unimaginative committee that may not have always had quite the same agenda as Jesus himself. At times, it has meant adherence to a philosophical theory or theological system enforced by various more or less coercive means and extending far beyond the bounds of what many Christians would consider justifiable based on the life and teachings of Jesus.

It is the job of each new generation of Christian to separate the different kinds of things that call themselves orthodoxy, and -- as we were taught from the beginning -- to test everything and hold onto what is good. It is not only easy but also fashionable to criticize orthodoxy for some of the wrong turns it has taken over the years. At its worst, orthodoxy has meant being bound to a party line rather than testing everything and holding onto what is good. But that general approach -- testing everything and holding onto what is good -- was the original method of orthodoxy. It had the goal of being faithful to the original person and message of Christ.

If we care at all about being faithful to the reality of Jesus, then we grant that orthodoxy is a legitimate idea. It takes an utter contempt for reality and for truthfulness to despise the general idea of orthodoxy. The alternative to orthodoxy, in principle, is to say that each person should invent what he pleases with no regard to the historical realities surrounding Jesus, to forget the early decades of the church and the knowledge passed on by those who knew him in person. For about half a century, those who had known Jesus in person remained to pour out their memories of someone who was, after all, a particular person who lived in a particular time and place, and that they particularly had known.

So the question becomes this: Does orthodoxy take on a life of its own and dictate how we can think about Jesus, or does what we know of Jesus define orthodoxy?

The stakes are higher than they might seem at first. As soon as we decide that our thought about Jesus will take on a life of their own apart from Jesus, as soon as our thought becomes a system to which the reality of Jesus must conform, we have robbed Jesus of his paradigm-shattering place, of his central and formative place that the apostles proclaimed about him. There have been endless reconstructions of Jesus putting themselves forwards as "orthodoxy" in the sense of reflecting the reality of Jesus, but which still insist on dictating what we are allowed to see, whether we are told we are supposed to see a hypostatic union of one person of the triune Godhead with humanity, or we are supposed to see a cynical sage.

While the reconstructionist-orthodox give us a bowdlerized Jesus and the Chalcedonian-style orthodox give us a philosophical prism, no system of understanding Jesus ever gains full acceptance in the context of Christianity, and there is a reason why this must be so: the early Christians did not proclaim a system of understanding Jesus. They proclaimed Jesus. A system tries to put Jesus in the background while other concerns rise to the fore to explain him. A system like this is designed to show how, in light of something else that defines Christ, we can make sense of Christ. But the Christ that was proclaimed is not someone who we understand in the light of something else -- something that matters more, something that explains more, something that puts him in his place so that we can understand him in his context with his more important surroundings. The Christ that was proclaimed by those who knew him is the light in which we understand those other things. If we are faithful to the first generation of Christians, then that is the challenge of orthodoxy: not to make a system to explain and define Christ, but to define and re-think all those other supposedly more important things in light of Christ.

The restless will

It is not in the nature of the will to be free. The human will always finds something to wish, something to desire, something to support, a person or object or goal; or it always finds something to oppose, something to avoid. That is what the will does: it attaches our energies to directions and to goals, it focuses our thoughts and actions. There is, then, the restless will, the satisfied will or the dissatisfied will, but not the free will.

Look, for instance, and what the will can do to the ability to reason. This ability to think or to reason is an ability that we all have in some measure. But whenever we desire to have or to do something we ourselves think is wrong, our will gives our mind a very interesting task: tell us all the reasons why the thing we want is right. And the mind does as the will asks it to do. The mind is just as capable of working for a goal that is unreasonable as it is for something reasonable.

We can set our minds and actions on anything we want to; the problem lies in whether we can control those desires themselves. And if we cannot control ourselves as to what we want, then we are under the control of whatever is the object of our desires. Here is the root of addictions and ideologies, perfectionism and obsessions, lusts and fears and greed.

The will is an appetite, a hunger for satisfaction. And as each object satisfies or fails to satisfy, it is kept or discarded. The will always searches for what satisfies better, and its restlessness looks for the ultimate satisfaction.

Did Tertullian speak of purgatory?

The doctrine of purgatory is a matter of controversy between different church bodies. According to the Catholic Encyclopedia's entry on purgatory, "the Church has always taught the doctrine of purgatory." The earliest Christian writer cited is Tertullian, who lived in the late 100's A.D. and early 200's A.D. Here I will review the works cited with a question in mind: did Tertullian speak of purgatory? The Catholic Encyclopedia's article on purgatory cites two of Tertullian's works: De corona militis and De monogamia.

De corona militis
Tertullian's aim in this writing is to show that a Christian, if he is in the Roman army, may not wear the customary crown or wreath, as it amounts to idolatry.

"De corona militis" mentions prayers for the dead as an Apostolic ordinance ..." - Catholic Encyclopedia, Purgatory, subsection titled Tradition.

The reference is apparently to a sentence in chapter 3, a chapter which is only a paragraph in its entirety. Because of its relative brevity, I will reproduce the entire paragraph to provide some context allowing the reader to gauge the accuracy of various comments on it:

[1] And how long shall we draw the saw to and fro through this line, when we have an ancient practice, which by anticipation has made for us the state, i.e., of the question? If no passage of Scripture has prescribed it, assuredly custom, which without doubt flowed from tradition, has confirmed it. For how can anything come into use, if it has not first been handed down? Even in pleading tradition, written authority, you say, must be demanded. [2] Let us inquire, therefore, whether tradition, unless it be written, should not be admitted. Certainly we shall say that it ought not to be admitted, if no cases of other practices which, without any written instrument, we maintain on the ground of tradition alone, and the countenance thereafter of custom, affords us any precedent. To deal with this matter briefly, I shall begin with baptism. When we are going to enter the water, but a little before, in the presence of the congregation and under the hand of the president, we solemnly profess that we disown the devil, and his pomp, and his angels. [3] Hereupon we are thrice immersed, making a somewhat ampler pledge than the Lord has appointed in the Gospel. Then when we are taken up (as new-born children), we taste first of all a mixture of milk and honey, and from that day we refrain from the daily bath for a whole week. We take also, in congregations before daybreak, and from the hand of none but the presidents, the sacrament of the Eucharist, which the Lord both commanded to be eaten at meal-times, and enjoined to be taken by all alike. As often as the anniversary comes round, we make offerings for the dead as birthday honours. [4] We count fasting or kneeling in worship on the Lord's day to be unlawful. We rejoice in the same privilege also from Easter to Whitsunday. We feel pained should any wine or bread, even though our own, be cast upon the ground. At every forward step and movement, at every going in and out, when we put on our clothes and shoes, when we bathe, when we sit at table, when we light the lamps, on couch, on seat, in all the ordinary actions of daily life, we trace upon the forehead the sign. (Tertullian, De Coronis Militis, Chapter 3 in entirety, emphasis added)

Tertullian indicated his purpose in his introductory notes in the previous chapter: to cite things held by custom or tradition that are not in Scripture. Reviewing the list, some of these ancient customs have survived into modern times, while others have not, such as refraining from bathing for a week after baptism or feeling pained when normal household bread falls upon the ground. At any rate, Tertullian mentions the practice of making offerings for the dead. This is not, however, mentioned as an Apostolic ordinance.

There is another place in the same writing which has some bearing on the question of whether the primitive church taught a doctrine of purgatory. Chapter 11 contains a discussion of whether it is permissible for a Christian to be a Roman soldier in the first place. He writes a chain of questions designed to show the incompatibility of being a Christian in the Roman army.

Shall it be held lawful to make an occupation of the sword, when the Lord proclaims that he who uses the sword shall perish by the sword? And shall the son of peace take part in the battle when it does not become him even to sue at law?

He multiplies examples at some length, then comes to the one of interest for our present purposes:

And shall the Christian be burned according to camp rule, when he was not permitted to burn incense to an idol, when to him Christ remitted the punishment of fire?

This quote, perhaps less advantageous to the idea that Tertullian spoke of purgatory, is not considered in the article.

De Monogamia
De Monogamia, or On monogamy, is a writing that few Christians today would be comfortable endorsing. It was written while Tertullian was a Montanist, generally considered a heretical sect. The purpose of the writing is to show that it is morally wrong -- a breach of marriage vows and a rejection of monogamy -- for a widow to remarry. The teachings of Paul on remarriage are explicitly set aside in favor of a supposed new revelation of the Holy Spirit. For all of Tertullian's colorful views, he does still bear a kind of witness to the state of Christian teaching in the primitive church.

"... and in "De Monogamia" (cap. x, P. L., II, col. 912) he advises a widow "to pray for the soul of her husband, begging repose for him and participation in the first resurrection"; he commands her also "to make oblations for him on the anniversary of his demise," and charges her with infidelity if she neglect to succour his soul." - Catholic Encyclopedia, Purgatory, subsection titled Tradition.

Here, then, is the applicable section of Tertullian's writing:

Indeed, she prays for his soul, and requests refreshment for him meanwhile, and fellowship (with him) in the first resurrection; and she offers (her sacrifice) on the anniversaries of his falling asleep. For, unless she does these deeds, she has in the true sense divorced him, so far as in her lies; and indeed the more iniquitously----inasmuch as (she did it) as far as was in her power----because she had no power (to do it); and with the more indignity, inasmuch as it is with more indignity if (her reason for doing it is) because he did not deserve it.

I think few of us would accept Tertullian's characterization of any widow's actions after the burial of her husband as a "divorce"; the point of interest is that he this time mentions both prayers for the dead and offerings or sacrifices for the dead.

Did Tertullian speak of purgatory?
The question then remains: did Tertullian speak of purgatory? If purgatory is, as the Catholic Encyclopedia states, "a place or condition of temporal punishment for those who, departing this life in God's grace, are, not entirely free from venial faults, or have not fully paid the satisfaction due to their transgressions," then we must ask whether Tertullian has spoken of these things when we ask whether he spoke of purgatory. In the passages cited in the article on Purgatory, Tertullian does not mention a place or condition of punishment for the saved after death, or sinners paying the satisfaction due to their transgressions, or any reckoning of payment for sins apart from the cross of Christ or the final day of reckoning.

Among the interesting questions raised is the nature and purpose of the annual offerings for the departed. Is the offering simply the Mass, or is it something else? Was the intent to spare punishments in the present time as purgatory would suggest, or to have the person readier to participate in the resurrection, or to ease the mind and build the confidence of the living by the remembrance of Christ in the face of upcoming judgment? Similar questions arise about prayers for the dead: is the prayer intended as a plea for mercy in the face of coming judgment, or is the prayer intended as a plea for the mercy in the face of ongoing punishment? While Tertullian does not mention any of the key ingredients of purgatory, the standing practice of prayers for the dead came to play a role in the development of that doctrine.

In the final analysis, prayers for the dead are not incompatible with the doctrine of purgatory but not in themselves proof that the prayerful accept the basic premises of purgatory: that there is guilt not remitted for Christ's sake to those who inherit eternal life, and that such unremitted guilt works itself out as an ongoing punishment for the dead at some time between their deaths and the Last Day.

"Miracles violate the laws of nature" -- or do they?

It is fairly common to hear atheists say that miracles violate the laws of nature. It is more irksome when Christians actually repeat that claim as if it were the right and valid definition of a miracle rather than an opponent's slur.

Nature and the Miracles of Healing
Most miracles recorded in the New Testament are miracles of healing. Such a miracle is not remotely about "violating" the laws of nature. Instead of being anti-nature, the healing miracles are restorative, putting nature right again. The healing miracles and resurrections are also, without exception, a benefit to those who receive them. They are not random or capricious acts, but acts of blessing. The power at work here is not opposed to the natural order but a source of renewal for it, returning it to its originally right state or healthy pattern.

The most common type of a miracle recorded, then, is a restoration of nature. In a healing miracle, God acts to bless people by restoring their natural human bodies to full natural health. That is hardly the transgression of the law of nature proclaimed by Hume and company.

The Son of God and the sons of God

Who has ascended to heaven and come down?
Who has gathered up the wind in the hollow of his hand?
Who has wrapped the waters in his garment?
Who has established all the extremities of the earth?
What is his name or his son’s name, if you know it? (Proverbs 30:4, NJPS)

The phrase “Son of God” is used in many ways in Scripture along with the idea of God as Father. Consider some of the “sons of God” mentioned:

• God is the Father of Israel; the tribe of Ephraim is his firstborn son (Jeremiah 31:9);
• the king is the Son of God (2 Samuel 7:14 and others);
• King Messiah, the Son of David, is Son of God (Psalm 2, Psalm 89);
• all those who receive the Messiah with faith are God’s sons (John 1:12)

Given the different ways it is used, does the phrase “Son of God” have any particular meaning? Does it express a relationship of approval but little else? How do these various people come to be called “Son of God” and is there any relationship among them? Does “Son of God” say anything about the nature of the person or people called “Son of God”? Or does it simply denote a relationship with God, not necessarily an essential part of the person’s identity?

I would like to begin considering this with one more reference that the Scriptures make to God’s Son:

In the distant past I was fashioned,
At the beginning, at the origin of the earth.
There was still no deep when I was brought forth,
No springs rich in water;
Before the foundation of the mountains were sunk,
Before the hills I was born. (Proverbs 8:23-25, NJPS)

(The surrounding verses are interesting as well, but to go into them would be to involve contested translations and interpretations, which would distract us without adding anything to the overall point.)

Here it is Wisdom who is speaking. Time-honored Jewish interpretations have seen Wisdom as also equivalent to the Torah, God’s instruction, God’s word. Based on this passage, much of Judaism has seen the Torah as God’s firstborn, being used to create the world. From a viewpoint of this history of the world, the first thing called God’s Son is Wisdom or Torah, the word of God.

The next thing called the Son of God, in order of appearance on the world stage, is Israel. But why is Israel called God’s son? Jesus calls our attention to a rabbinic interpretation of Psalm 82:6:

I had taken you for divine beings, sons of the Most High, all of you (Psalm 82:6, NJPS).

There is an ancient Jewish tradition that this refers to the people of God at Sinai (see Avodah Zarah 5a). Jesus comments, “He called them ‘gods’ to whom the Word of God came.” (John 10:35 NIV). Israel stood unique among the ancient nations of the world as the only one to whom the Word of God was revealed. It is for this reason that Israel can be called Son of God and in some sense divine – not divine in an original sense as rival gods, but in a sense of being transformed beyond the confines of an animal existence by the knowledge of God.

In due time in the history of Israel there were kings, also called “sons of God”. I will leave it to the voice of Wisdom to explain the king’s relation to Wisdom:

Through me kings reign
And rulers decree just laws;
Through me princes rule,
Great men and all the righteous judges. (Proverbs 8:15-16, NJPS)

1 Samuel also records that as King Saul and King David were anointed they received the Holy Spirit. Afterwards, both prophesied and spoke the Word of God. Again it is not a random collection of unrelated people referred to as “Son of God”, as if the phrase had no particular meaning outside of a vague and unspecified relationship. In the case of the king, the “Son of God” is one who fills an office rightly reserved for God, one who has the Spirit of God and knows justice through knowing the Word of God.

For last I have saved mention of King Messiah. The first “Son of God” in order of appearance is the Word of God, and this same Word of God is the one said to be dwelling (“tabernacling”) among us as Christ (John 1:14), as John makes a not-too-subtle reference to the Shechinah and the Tabernacle at Sinai, a reference to the event that made Israel God’s Son. With that background, here we may have a fuller appreciation of Christ’s comments on his own relationship to God:

“I and the Father are one.”

Again the Jews picked up stones to stone him, but Jesus said to them, “I have shown you many great miracles from the Father. For which of these do you stone me?”

“We are not stoning you for any of these,” replied the Jews, “But for blasphemy, because you, a mere man, claim to be God.”

Jesus answered them, “Is it not written in your Law, ‘I have said you are gods’? If he called them ‘gods’ to whom the Word of God came – and the Scritpure cannot be broken – what about the one whom the Father set apart as his very own and sent into the world? Why then do you accuse me of blasphemy because I said ‘I am God’s Son’?”(John 10:30-36)

Here Jesus is plain: he is "Son of God" in more than the sense in which they were "sons of God" as the people of God. They were called Sons of God because they received the Word of God sent into the world. But he is that Word of God who was sent, the Word of God that makes us into Sons of God, who when we receive him creates that relationship with God within us and transforms who we are by our knowledge of God.

The phrase “Son of God” has layers of meaning with rich overlap between them. Far from being a meaningless phrase, the meanings are interrelated and plot a trajectory of God reaching out to the world through his wisdom and understanding and love -- and ultimately through Christ -- to transform his people into Sons of God.

Explaining God to Geeks?

If Christ is the Mediator between God and man, would a programmer say he is the Interface between God and Man? Some of Christ's self-titles verge on interface language: the gate, the door.

If Christ is the image of God, would a movie-buff say he is God's Cameo Appearance?

Would an artist call him God's self-portrait?

The God Who Blesses

And he began to teach them, saying: “Blessed …”

The beatitudes – the series of blessings Jesus spoke at the beginning of the Sermon on the Mount – are at times taken as moral instruction. While we certainly can take moral instruction from them, they are first and foremost blessings. Jesus begins his teaching ministry with a revelation of God: the proclamation of the God who blesses.

Genesis records that the first time God spoke to man, he spoke a blessing. As the God who blesses, he is the God of Abraham whom he blessed; the God of Isaac whom he blessed; the God of Jacob who would not let him go until he blessed him. He is the God of Sinai, who commanded that his mediator, a priest, should pronounce a blessing is his name: “ ‘The LORD bless you and keep you…’ They shall put my Name on the children of Israel, and I will bless them.”

Jesus’ blessings, like all of God’s blessings, are a promise. They are a promise that God takes notice of us, that God remembers us. They are a promise of God’s faithfulness to his creation. The blessings of the beatitudes are focused on proclaiming God’s goodness to those who do not now see it: the poor, the mourning, the meek, the hungry, the merciful, the pure in heart, the peacemakers, the persecuted. The beatitudes proclaim God’s promise that their faithfulness and hardship are known to God and will not be forgotten. Jesus’ proclamation of the God who blesses is the ground of our hope.

Luther's odd argument for real presence

For Martin Luther, the question of theology was ultimately the question of God's grace -- particularly Christ and him crucified. Luther was no stranger to the debating circles of his day, no amateur at driving home his point. So it always struck me as odd, more than odd, a serious mis-step in his arguments when he made an argument for Christ's real presence in communion based on ubiquity -- that is, based on omnipresence. That seemed to be a backwards argument. Luther had made plain and strong arguments on Christ's real presence from Scripture, which was his strong suit. So why take up an argument that starts by assuming that the bread and wine are nothing special?

But as time goes on, and the more conversations I have with people from non-sacramental churches, the more I come to understand that Luther was going for the heart of the problem after all. To paraphrase the thrust of his argument: Is Christ God? Isn't he omnipresent? Isn't it in him that we live and move and have our being? Isn't he the fullness of him who fills all things? Then how can you say that one who is omnipresent is not in the bread and wine? How can you say that one who is omnipresent is present everywhere in the universe except in the elements he singled out and said, "This is my body, this is my blood"?

You cannot say that Christ is not really present at all in the bread and the wine without saying that omnipresence isn't real presence; that is, without saying that omnipresence isn't real. Or without saying that Christ isn't really the fullness of him who fills all things, that Christ isn't omnipresent; that is, that Christ isn't God.

The more I speak with non-sacramental Christians, the clearer it becomes to me that many such Christians see a world where God is not omnipresent, where omnipresence is not a living reality even though it is confessed with the lips, even though as a point of doctrine it will always have their mental assent not because they give it any thought but because the Bible says it. A recent book I read on Christian spirituality speaks of meditation and "making God present." Nobody talks like that who genuinely believes in omnipresence. There is no such thing as "making God present." There is welcoming God's presence or not welcoming God's presence, but there is no changing the fact of God's presence. There is no "practicing the presence of God"; there is only practicing being aware of the Presence which is already there. Those who do not see God in the tavern or the bar, who do not know God's presence in their kitchens, if God is not with them doing rush-hour karaoke in their cars, if they have not looked at the homeless fellow under the bridge and seen Christ, then what hope is there that they will recognize Christ in bread and wine?

Zwingli's famous argument against the real presence is very telling: "The finite cannot contain the infinite." If someone genuinely believes that the finite cannot contain the infinite, then the finite Jesus of Nazareth was not the infinite God. If someone firmly believes that the finite cannot contain the infinite, then has God's real presence ever been known on earth? If not, then omnipresence is not real presence. Luther attacked the heart of the problem after all, the "worldview" as we would now say, when he challenged for the reality of omnipresence. In a world where God is really present, it is a natural thing to believe Christ can truly be present in the bread and wine. In a world where Christ is not even in the bread and wine, where then is he?

Fallen by unbelief; Justified by faith

The atonement debates seem to be heating up again. Much of the ground has been thoroughly covered, but perhaps a few comments might be productive.

First, what is the nature of the fall? It is first of all a loss of faith in God, and the rest follows. The serpent is portrayed as preaching doubt in God: distrust of God's honesty, distrust of God's motives, distrust of God's word. The fall happens when we say in our doubt, "That's right; I can't trust God. He doesn't have our best interests at heart. He's trying to keep us down. He's trying to keep exaltation for himself." It is precisely a loss of faith -- a loss of trust in God -- that is the key moment of humanity's fall from grace. Grace, again, is a good relationship with God. When our actions advertise a distrust of God, when we say with our actions "God is not trustworthy", implicitly accusing God either of duplicity and treachery or of a lack of wisdom -- this inherently and by its very nature destroys the relationship of grace.

If the fall is a loss of faith -- loss of trust in God -- then is righteousness anything other than faith? Is righteousness anything other than confessing, "God is trustworthy"? Is a return to our right minds any more complicated than that realization that God is trustworthy, that he is for us and that his word can be trusted? God's faithfulness is the bedrock on which our faith stands. And our trust is not a blind leap or an irrational one, but a reliance on the reality of God's trustworthiness.

Abraham and the ancients were reckoned righteous by faith, because they considered that God who made the promise was faithful.

What about our faith? As guilty people, we dare not trust the judge. Does God have our best interests at heart? That question becomes, in our bad consciences, whether the judge has at heart the best interests of the guilty. We dare not risk it, so we hurry to accuse the judge of unfairness, to create a cosmic mistrial, to get ourselves acquitted not by innocence but by counter-accusations. That is unbelief. Notice how atheism -- supposedly a belief that there is no God -- actually in practice is much more preoccupied with accusing the judge of unfairness. The driving force of atheism is the variety of unbelief spoken of in the fall -- unbelief in God's fairness -- rather than unbelief in God's existence. The innocent may go before a judge boldly, but not the guilty.

Here is one place where Christ speaks plainly and clearly to us. It is in Christ that God has proved his faithfulness to us. In Christ, God has shown the world that he has our best interests at heart, even as guilty as we are. It is in seeing Christ and hearing the message of Christ that we trust God again.

And as we trust God again, we find that this is righteousness. This is faith; it comes through hearing the message of Christ. As we trust God again, we find that we are in a right relationship with him again, and that this is grace; it comes through Christ. The day of accusing God to justify ourselves is over.

What is doctrine for?

Continuing a conversation with Japhy, a Roman Catholic blog neighbor. This is a spin-off conversation about the nature of the church, in which Japhy is basically pursuing an angle about the nature of doctrine and its relation to salvation.

Is adherence to Lutheran doctrine necessary for salvation? If so, by whose authority? Luther's (or his successors')? And if Lutheran doctrine is not necessary for salvation, what is its purpose? I do not mean to sound inflammatory, but I am curious what Lutheranism holds as true that may or may not be necessary for salvation. And which Lutheran denomination retains the proper doctrine...?

Jeff, you'd have to get a whole lot more riled than that before you came across as inflammatory. Inflammatory is just not your habit. Besides, you're well within the area of "questions you're bound to ask".

Starting with the least theologically important question first:
Q. Which Lutheran denomination retains the proper doctrine?
A. The one(s) still holding to the original Tradition of the church, that handed down by Christ through the apostles.

Next,
Q. What is necessary for salvation?
A. Christ is necessary for salvation. Doctrine, in its best sense, is a full life-giving knowledge of God and his kingdom. Unfortunately, "doctrine" often becomes a set of propositions to be memorized whose content (in theory) could convey some knowledge of God and his kingdom if only people weren't so busy mistaking doctrine for salvation. It would be like mistaking the nutrition label on the can for a nourishing meal. (See, it says right there, "100% iron, 100% calcium ... and I already read the label so I'm set! I read it twice, so I'm more nourished than you!") What Christ said about Scriptures could easily be said about doctrine: You eagerly search them because you think that by them you have eternal life. These are they that testify about me, yet you refuse to come to me and have life.

There are all kinds of things that are true (Lutheran doctrines, Roman Catholic doctrines, doctrines of all kinds of other groups too numerous to name) that are not "necessary for salvation". There are things that are true about God, but knowing them is not "necessary for salvation". If doctrine isn't necessary for salvation, then what is the purpose of doctrine? To bless us through knowledge of the Holy One. I have often asked myself, "Is there really any other blessing besides God?" To know God is to have peace and patience and perseverance. To know God is to have the fullness of love. To know God is to have complete freedom from fear. To know God is to have all wisdom. To know God is to be joyful. What good thing is outside of him? That is what doctrine is about: there is no higher blessing than God.