Where does 'doctrine' come from? - James Callahan (2020)

Where does ‘doctrine’ come from? - James Callahan (2020) For Instance… why we have ‘theology’ and how we have it… Coming to terms with ‘pastoral’ literature. In the literature typically called ‘pastoral’ (1 & 2 Timothy and Titus) there is a clear distinction between “God’s word,” “the word” and “scripture/writings” on the one hand, and “sound teaching,” “doctrine” and “words” on the other hand. That is, what we say about, based on, concerning God's word is something different from, even though it must be consistent with, that word from God. Sound Doctrine: 1 Timothy 1:10 1 Timothy 4:16 2 Timothy 1:13 2 Timothy 4:2-3 Titus 1:13 Titus 2:10 Word: 1 Timothy 1:7-9 1 Timothy 5:17-18 2 Timothy 3:15-16 1 Timothy 4:6 1 Timothy 6:1 2 Timothy 3:10 2 Timothy 4:15 Titus 2:1 1 Timothy 4:5 2 Timothy 2:9 2 Timothy 4:2 1 Timothy 4:13 1 Timothy 6:3 2 Timothy 3:16 Titus 1:9 Titus 2:7 1 Timothy 4:13 2 Timothy 2:15 Titus 1:3 During the later apostolic era there existed a body of knowledge that was distinct from the written word, or the law, or the words of Jesus, or Scripture. This framework was called: ‘sound/good teaching,’ ‘the words of the faith,’ ‘Christian teaching/doctrine,’ ‘sound precepts of our Lord Jesus Christ,’ ‘good religious teaching,’ ‘the outline of sound teaching,’ ‘the message,’ ‘true doctrine,’ ‘a sound faith,’ and ‘the doctrine of God our Savior.’ Historians (called New Testament scholars, but they don’t like to be called that, so don’t do it to their faces…) demean this literature with the suggestion that is ‘sounds’ institutional, too concerned with form and formula –at the expense of ‘spirit’ (and thus, genuinely Pauline writings are read as advocating freedom from convictions that one lacks freedom if one is a 'pastoral literature' Christian). A word on apostolicity, authenticity, authorship and authority…. The questions of genuineness and authorship have often been connected, but much of what we call Scripture is formally anonymous (Genesis, Exodus, Leviticus and Numbers, Job, Matthew, Mark, Luke, John, Acts, Hebrews are strong examples of anonymity that frustrate those who link authorship with authority and authenticity). Linguistic (differing vocabulary), historical (pastoral literature doesn't fit in Acts) and ecclesiastical (well-ordered, non-pneumatic 'offices') concerns are significant for historians, but it is the theological issues (developed/ing idea of 'doctrine' and 'dogma' stifle or hedge pneumatic/prophetic instances of scriptural reflection) that are most troubling. Seed theory versions of ecclesial/theological unity see development as the realization (history is what had to happen, and development is, as hind-sight, perfectly 20/20). Historical development models (typical Protestant explanations) regard development as real, but distinguish between historicist-bound necessity and idealistic-transcending escapism (there is the actual, historical circumstances of development, but there is a ideal 'kernel' of truth that is incarnate in any number of contexts but not exhausted by that contextual incarnation; episcopal traditions most closely associating historical with the ideal, magisterial Protestants sever the historical from the ideal where 'apostolic' means believing what the apostles believed). Historicist evaluations say the suspected development in pastoral literature is a betrayal of the idealized primitive community, but incidental because there is no 'that was supposed happen' standard (historicists view events represented in writings as products of conditions at the time the ultimate contextualization of forces beyond human control or divine influence). Primitivists hold that there is an appropriate development of what was at first (accounting for the pastoral literature) but also a way of validating (and/or invalidating) any development (practice/discipleship evaluates doctrine, preaching, theory, and even prayer/worship). Try this… The notion that ‘sound doctrine’ is defensible as ‘sound doctrine’ undermines the metaphorical/allegorical religious reading of the New Testament. ‘Sound doctrine’ is taken as second-order practice (theological reflection and ecclesial action) of first-order language (the ‘word’ or ‘scripture’), but not read as simply the same thing as that first-order language. In this scenario ‘sound doctrine’ can be understood as literally alive (live-it-out well [as second-order discourse] and fulfilling what is read [scripture as first-order discourse]). Got that? The 'doctrine' is the meaning of the 'story' (license to untangle idea from incident -- spirit freed from the letter) Event -- Characterization -- [Representation] -- Reception (happened) (narration) (doctrine) (use by readers) The 'story' is the meaning of the 'doctrine' (prohibition to transgress what we have -- letter is the meaning of the spirit) Characterization -- Representation -- [Event] -- Reception (narration) (doctrine) (happened) (use by readers) Christian theological interpretation of its sacred writings “is a procedure whose taxonomy or phenomenology may be very simply set forth in three logically distinct but in fact united elements: explicatio, meditatio, application” (referring to Karl Barth, this summary is from Hans W. Frei, Types of Christian Theology [1992], 92). In a similar vein, sociologists have suggested a triadic taxonomy of common sense, theory and the poetic (see H. L. Dreyfus and S. J. Todes, ‘Discussion” The Three Worlds of Merleau-Ponty,’ Philosophical and Phenomenological Research 22 [1961-62]: 559-65). Explicatio is used of the plain sense, as in the way the words go or common sense, even if we don’t like the way the words go (explicatio doesn’t attempt to propose resolution of dissonance, harmonize, or theorize). The ‘common sense’ doesn’t aim for precision, it accounts for how we ‘get along’ in the world, the tactics of surviving within the circumstances of life, day-to-day (it becomes codified in proverbs, folk customs, habits passed down from parent to child; as Umberto Eco suggested: “I believe that what we become depends on what our fathers teach us at odd moments, when they aren't trying to teach us”). About the Bible this is (to use a metaphor) ‘surface grammar’ and the expression is a statement of what is read there (i.e. It is eighty-six degrees today). Meditatio is used to describe how philosophical (ideological) schemes or some modality in reading is brought into conversation with explicatio or the plain sense of the text (it doesn’t confuse ‘other’ schemes with ‘what the text really says or means’). The more resistant readers are to progressive conversation as a means of understanding, the more threatening meditatio appears (and resistance to circumstantial and heterodox readings of shared texts, i.e. ‘reading without comment’ or ‘original intent’). Meditatio is any reading that doesn’t vacate or supplant explicatio, either in the formation of the texts (source- and form-critical interests) or the use of the texts (readerly and reception interests, ‘on this side of the text’ to Ricoeur). It is (to use another metaphor) ‘alien grammar’ and the expression is a statement of what it seems to look like (i.e. It is hot). Applicatio is used of a transition from the sense to the use of the scriptural texts, through a course of examination by means of meditatio (what others, outsiders, say or said). It is more than the sum total of blended or integrated explicatio and meditatio, but it is traditionally a treatment of explicatio as form containing meaning, teased-out or rendered by meditatio as contextually and historically situated. In this sense, applicatio is religious allegory and (to use a final metaphor), it is ‘depth grammar’ and concerns what meaning of experience is (i.e. What does it mean to be hot?). An alternative rendering of applicatio refuses the ideological character of ‘depth grammar’ and refuses to sever any use made of Scripture from explicatio (there ‘meaning’ of phrases like incarnation, resurrection, death, creation does not accord with that which transcends text or is more basic than text, but is rendered by means of scripture as text). Instead of the doctrine being the meaning of the narrative of Scripture (as with traditional theological allegory or applicatio), the alternative version of applicatio proposes the narrative of Scripture is the meaning of the doctrine. This is not a ‘method’ that guarantees proper use apart from the moral conditions of faith. The use made of ‘the word of God’ in ‘sound doctrine’ requires ‘godliness’ and not just better historical information (i.e. This is what it means to be hot, as a form of testimony).