Some quotes from Horton's What Is Heresy? on the usefulness of creeds and its limitations...
"To ignore creeds and confessions is the height of modern arrogance. Simply because we have microwaves and Novocain, we assume that ours is the wisest, most self-sufficient age in history. And yet, technological sophistication does not equal wisdom; know-how is not the same as knowledge.
Christians have fallen into this modern arrogance by assuming that they do not need the teachers that Paul commended to Timothy. Nor do they need catechetical instruction. 'I just believe the Bible' is no defense against cults, superstitions, apostasy, and heresy, since nearly every sect for the last two thousand years has claimed the Bible for support.
The answer is not to make the church's teachers infallible interpreters of Scripture, as in Rome, nor to ignore the church's teachers, as in contemporary evangelicalism, but to have the humility to recognize that 'iron sharpens iron' and that it takes the wisdom and insight of many interpreters over many centuries to help us to see our blind spots. Only a fool would ignore the accumulated wisdom of nearly twenty centuries. "...
Are the creeds infallible? No, but the universal confession of the whole church since its beginning, despite other divisions, is that the Bible clearly teaches that the affirmations we find in the Apostles', Nicene, Chalcedonian, and Athanasian creeds are essential for our salvation.
Protestants, Catholics, and Orthodox believers are united in their commitment to these essentials. They are not true because the church says so; the church says so because they are true.
The tradition of calling the universal church for a council began among the apostles themselves, with the Council of Jerusalem, to combat the Judaizing heresy. While councils may err and have erred to the point of even contradicting each other in the middle ages, the early ecumenical councils carry the assent of all Christians everywhere and have right up to the present. Why should we tolerate as shepherds among us anyone whose teaching fails to conform to the clear consensus of the whole Christian church from its earliest days?
Are Creeds Useful? (This article helps to answer those who falsely accuse Reformed folks for regarding creeds as infallible)
Those who fault Presbyterian subscription to the Westminster Standards should be made to realize that the Confession is self-consciously derivative from and subordinate to the Bible. It not only amply demonstrates and vigorously maintains its utter dependence upon Scripture in its opening chapter, but it allow--no, demands!--appeal beyond itself to its authority, the Bible.
Witness paragraphs 4 and 10 from its opening chapter:
'The authority of the Holy Scripture for which it ought to be believed, and obeyed, dependeth not upon the testimony of any man, or Church; but wholly upon God (who is truth itself) the author thereof: and therefore it is to be received, because it is the Word of God.'
'The supreme judge by which all controversies of religion are to be determined, and all decrees of councils, opinions of ancient writers, doctrines of men, and private spirits, are to be examined, and in whose sentence we are to rest, can be no other but the Holy Spirit speaking in the Scripture.'
Furthermore, at WCF 31:2 mention is made of the actions of church bodies (such as in the framing of creeds) and their relative authority. Such actions are to be heeded only 'if consonant with the Word of God.' Thus, the Westminster Confession of Faith, as a proper creed, actually vouchsafes the supreme, unparalleled authority of Scripture."
"To ignore creeds and confessions is the height of modern arrogance. Simply because we have microwaves and Novocain, we assume that ours is the wisest, most self-sufficient age in history. And yet, technological sophistication does not equal wisdom; know-how is not the same as knowledge.
Christians have fallen into this modern arrogance by assuming that they do not need the teachers that Paul commended to Timothy. Nor do they need catechetical instruction. 'I just believe the Bible' is no defense against cults, superstitions, apostasy, and heresy, since nearly every sect for the last two thousand years has claimed the Bible for support.
The answer is not to make the church's teachers infallible interpreters of Scripture, as in Rome, nor to ignore the church's teachers, as in contemporary evangelicalism, but to have the humility to recognize that 'iron sharpens iron' and that it takes the wisdom and insight of many interpreters over many centuries to help us to see our blind spots. Only a fool would ignore the accumulated wisdom of nearly twenty centuries. "...
Are the creeds infallible? No, but the universal confession of the whole church since its beginning, despite other divisions, is that the Bible clearly teaches that the affirmations we find in the Apostles', Nicene, Chalcedonian, and Athanasian creeds are essential for our salvation.
Protestants, Catholics, and Orthodox believers are united in their commitment to these essentials. They are not true because the church says so; the church says so because they are true.
The tradition of calling the universal church for a council began among the apostles themselves, with the Council of Jerusalem, to combat the Judaizing heresy. While councils may err and have erred to the point of even contradicting each other in the middle ages, the early ecumenical councils carry the assent of all Christians everywhere and have right up to the present. Why should we tolerate as shepherds among us anyone whose teaching fails to conform to the clear consensus of the whole Christian church from its earliest days?
Are Creeds Useful? (This article helps to answer those who falsely accuse Reformed folks for regarding creeds as infallible)
Those who fault Presbyterian subscription to the Westminster Standards should be made to realize that the Confession is self-consciously derivative from and subordinate to the Bible. It not only amply demonstrates and vigorously maintains its utter dependence upon Scripture in its opening chapter, but it allow--no, demands!--appeal beyond itself to its authority, the Bible.
Witness paragraphs 4 and 10 from its opening chapter:
'The authority of the Holy Scripture for which it ought to be believed, and obeyed, dependeth not upon the testimony of any man, or Church; but wholly upon God (who is truth itself) the author thereof: and therefore it is to be received, because it is the Word of God.'
'The supreme judge by which all controversies of religion are to be determined, and all decrees of councils, opinions of ancient writers, doctrines of men, and private spirits, are to be examined, and in whose sentence we are to rest, can be no other but the Holy Spirit speaking in the Scripture.'
Furthermore, at WCF 31:2 mention is made of the actions of church bodies (such as in the framing of creeds) and their relative authority. Such actions are to be heeded only 'if consonant with the Word of God.' Thus, the Westminster Confession of Faith, as a proper creed, actually vouchsafes the supreme, unparalleled authority of Scripture."
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