The Pros and Cons of Confessions

From The Forum Magazine, Winter 2013 - view the full issue here

The CRCNA remains an intentionally confessional church. Recent denominational discussions and synodical decisions about the Covenant of Officebearers and the Belhar Confession strongly reaffirmed our commitment to the Three Forms of Unity—the Heidelberg Catechism, Belgic Confession, and Canons of Dort. Each has its own organization and language, and none captures everything that Scripture teaches. But all are gospel centered summaries of the basic perspective and specific doctrines that are foundational for Christian faith and life. Together they present a robust overview of the Reformed faith. As doctrinal standards, they state what we should believe, not just what our spiritual ancestors professed. We still find that the Forms are faithful to Scripture and nurture our walk with the Lord. Many who join us from other backgrounds discover them to be rich treasures of biblical truth.

But recent discussions also raised concerns about confessions. Some wonder whether we emphasize doctrine so much that we confuse faith in Christ with mere head knowledge, neglect Christian living, and fail to share the gospel with others. Others suspect that our strong commitment to centuries-old formulations stifles openness to Scripture, frustrates the Holy Spirit, impedes theological renewal, reflects Western intellectualism, isolates us from other Christians, and impairs our ability to contextualize the gospel in the current world. Good Reformed people raise these concerns. And together we must all wrestle with these questions.

Do Doctrinal Standards Undermine Our Faith and Life?

It is possible that too much emphasis on doctrinal orthodoxy could become legalistic, divisive, and delude us into confusing faith in Christ with knowledge of theology. It would be spiritually deadening if we were more concerned with the Forms than with Scripture, prayer, obedient living, ecumenical fellowship, and sharing the gospel. However, affirming the Forms does not necessarily lead to such distortions. Who in the CRCNA advocates for or lives that way? If doctrinalism ever was a problem, it was decades ago. Since the 1970s, Catechism preaching, doctrinal education, and members’ knowledge of the Reformed confessions have steadily declined. Is fear of heresy behind our lack of hospitality to visitors? Is the doctrine of reprobation what impedes evangelism? Whatever the reasons for our spiritual weaknesses, inordinate zeal for confessional orthodoxy is surely not to blame. In fact, I wonder whether loss of interest in doctrine is part of the problem.

But even if confessions don’t hurt us, why should we have them? Why not simply affirm Scripture and a basic faith-statement like the Apostles’ Creed, and leave other doctrines up to individuals, congregations, and scholars?

Sound Doctrine is Required by Scripture

Christian churches have adopted doctrinal statements because the Bible commands us to acknowledge, believe, and practice what it teaches. Dr. Mast’s article effectively develops that point. Doctrine is not merely human propositions about Christianity but careful identification of what God teaches in Scripture. It is not mere head-knowledge, but affirms God’s written revelation about himself, creation, our sin, God’s salvation through Christ, the work of the Spirit, the church, and how we should live for God’s kingdom and glory. We must hear and obey everything God teaches in Scripture. Lack of sound doctrine is a failure to obey God and undermines the faith, hope, love, worship, lives, and ministry of God’s people. Confessions do not capture everything in Scripture, but they frame the key teachings on which the others depend and are rightly understood.

History Teaches the Importance of Confessions

Church history confirms the importance of confessions. The Apostles’, Nicene, and Athanasian Creeds were written mainly because of significant issues in the life and worship of the early church, not because intellectuals wanted to debate propositions. These creeds are ecumenical and still affirmed by Eastern Orthodox, Roman Catholic, and confessional Protestant churches. Our Three Forms of Unity were written after the Reformation, when Lutheran, Reformed, Roman Catholic, and some Anabaptist churches summarized the Christian faith in catechisms and confessions that reflected their perspectives.

During the centuries when Christianity was dominant in Western civilization, denominations stressed their doctrinal differences—often to the point of exclusion, isolation, and hostility. Such regrettable attitudes still exist today. But denominational confessions differ little on the fundamental doctrines of the faith, such as Scripture, God’s nature, the Trinity, the person and work of Christ, supernatural miracles, atonement, resurrection, the Christian life, and life to come. For the last three hundred years, the Christian faith in Western society has been challenged by Deism, Enlightenment rationalism, romantic humanism, scientific naturalism, and postmodern pluralism. During this time, the main division among Christian churches has been between those that remain faithful to their historical confessions of biblical doctrine and those who have accommodated Christianity to modern and postmodern intellectual and ethical principles. The current importance of the confessions is maintaining continuity with biblical Christianity and vigilance against modernist and postmodernist deviations and religious pluralism. Confessional Protestants are often closer to confessional Orthodox and Catholic Christians on the basic doctrines of the faith than to liberal and progressive members of their own denominations.

Are the Confessions Time-Bound?

Some feel that the confessions are timebound and out of date. But it is more correct to say that they are time-specific than timebound. They were written in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, so obviously they address those issues in the manner of that era. But the doctrines they assert are not limited to that period for two reasons: they are ecumenical; and the issues remain current.

First, the confessions reaffirm the doctrines of the ecumenical creeds, which have stood since the early church and still define biblical orthodoxy for most of the world’s Christians. Their formulations are not eternal, but they endure through time. They are not sixteenth-century museum pieces.

Second, the Reformed position on doctrines that Christians debate is not limited to the post-Reformation period. Most of these issues have been discussed from the time of the early church to the present. God’s sovereignty and the human will; election and judgment; the relation of grace, faith, and works; the nature of Scripture; revelation in Scripture and in nature; the nature and work of the church; the sacraments; Christians’ lifestyle and relation to the world—all these topics and more have been debated since the early church. Most issues have few options: either God is completely sovereign or not; either baptism is only for believers or not. There are just a few possible understandings of the sacraments and a few kinds of church government. The different positions and reasons for and against them have been discussed for centuries. Totally new positions and interpretations of Scripture are unlikely (unless post-Enlightenment perspectives are adopted). The Reformed confessions state the positions that Reformed churches believe are most biblical. One might think they are mistaken or too restrictive, but they are not time-bound.

How Should We Interpret the Confessions Today?

There are two opposite misinterpretations of the confessions. One treats them as historically relative and without direct application today. The other is fundamentalist, applying everything in the confessions exactly how it was understood centuries ago. In my view, the right approach is to use the same method of interpretation that we use for Scripture.

The Reformed approach to the Bible aims to understand what it meant when it was written so that we can apply it properly to our lives in the present. (See Weima’s article in Forum, October 2012.) Scripture teaches many truths about God, humans, salvation, and God’s will for our lives that endure for all times and places. It also teaches things intended for limited times and places—Old Testament sacrifices, kosher laws, and New Testament rules about hats in church and owning slaves. Likewise for humans—our basic nature remains the same, but our knowledge, culture, technology, and social patterns change. Scripture is clear on most issues, but sometimes the church must ponder and pray to gain clarity, as with women in office, creation and evolution, and the ethics of modern warfare.

Similarly, the confessions are clear on most issues they address. If they are shown from Scripture to be mistaken or too narrow, the church is committed to correcting them. But sometimes what they mean or imply for today is not obvious. So we must discern whether women in office is a confessional issue (no), whether children may come to the Supper (yes), or what the Belgic Confession’s statements about the book of Scripture and the book of the universe imply for the relation between Genesis and scientific accounts of human ancestry.

For centuries, Reformed synods, educators, and cultural leaders have interpreted and applied the confessions to the issues of their day. So do we today. That is why confessional orthodoxy is a living, relevant tradition rather than a fading echo of the longdead past.

Using the confessions is like the Supreme Court’s interpreting the Constitution after two hundred years of legislation and court decisions. Judges must apply the original principles to complex situations unimagined by the framers. Another analogy is surveying unmapped land. Surveyors take a fixed starting point, establish precisely located markers, and move into new territory. They remain on track as long as they follow the original trajectories. If Scripture is our starting point and the confessions our historic markers, then we should engage the future within those biblical-confessional trajectories. We will find lots of new ideas within the borders and lots outside.

Conclusion

Approaching the confessions this way, we may see that they are not antiquated straightjackets that frustrate God’s Spirit by blocking novelty and reform. They remain living, reliable summaries of biblical truths for faith and life from which to express and contextualize the gospel wherever God gives us opportunity.

(John Cooper, Professor of Philosophical Theology, Emeritus)