This is part two of our discussion on the chapter discussing the Holy Scriptures in Sam Waldron's commentary on the 1689 Baptist Confession of Faith. You can find part one, here. In that section we discussed the relationship between Reformed theology and the inspiration of Scripture, and we discussed the relationship between the confession and the cessationist/continuationist debate. If you want to start at the beginning of this series, you can start here. Also, if you are willing to read all three of these so far, I thank you in advance. I understand that for someone who isn't a Reformed Baptist, this probably bores you to tears, and if you are a Reformed Baptist, you have probably been through this confession more than I have. My hope is to engage the confession in a bit different way so that those with interest in it can think about it a little differently.
How do we defend the authority of Scripture?
I have a bachelor's degree in Religion, nearly every class I took in my major in college involved some form of textual criticism, then I went to grad school and manuscript evidence for the Scriptures were a critical component to arguing for the authority and reliability of Scripture. However, Waldron asserts that these arguments are unnecessary for finding the Scripture trustworthy. He says:
"Without reasoned dissertations or external arguments being added to them, the Scriptures are sufficient to warrant the confidence in their truthfulness which is required for saving faith. If one does not clearly state that the Scriptures are sufficient to oblige belief in and of themselves, one seriously undermines the doctrine of the sufficiency of Scriptures."
What Waldron is asserting is that we are in error if our reason for trusting the reliability of Scripture is based on the external arguments of man. To rely on something outside of Scripture to prove the reliability of Scripture is essentially to say that the Scriptures cannot defend themselves. None of this is to say that the information brought in from the field of textual criticism or manuscript evidence should not exist. After all, even Waldron makes reference to the manuscript evidence in his work, but it is in no way the reason why he finds the Scriptures trustworthy.
This is not fideism in the negative sense. Yes, we are relying on revelation for our knowledge, but we are not doing so blindly. Waldron gives us a thorough argument that shows that the Old Testament is trustworthy because it is fulfilled by the New Testament, and the New Testament is trustworthy because of it's completion of the old. If this book were written all at once, this argument would be begging the question, and would not work, but since these texts were written independently and hundreds of years apart, we can see things prophesied centuries before in the Old Testament being fulfilled as much time later in the New.
Waldron's argument here is as convincing as it is sound, once again he provides us with an extremely valuable insight.
Revising the confession?
To take a different turn, the Reformed confessions are somewhat of a historical curiosity. During the 1500s and 1600s, we can find at least forty significant Reformed confessions and catechisms produced by various groups. Since that time we have not seen a third as many. Revision of confessions was something not shied away from, nor was writing an entirely new statement. A prime example is the 1644 and 1689 Baptist confessions. The 1644 confession relied on the 1596 True Confession. The 1689 Confession relied on the Westminster Confession of 1646. A large motivation for relying on the newer confession was due to a desire to not be seen as anachronistically misinterpreting a confession that was nearly eighty years old by the time the 1689 was written. (It was actually written in 1677, but it was publically confirmed in 1689 after England passed the Religious Toleration act into law and the Baptists no longer had to fear persecution from the Presbyterians or the Anglicans.)
The Baptists updated their confession because they needed an expression of their faith that was relevant and clear for their own time period. With this in mind, why on earth do we not update our confessions far more regularly?
There are two primary reasons why a confession of faith would be revised. The first would be that a group decides that the current confession is in error so a chapter needed to be removed or amended. This is essentially what the Particular Baptists did with the Westminster Confession. They removed chapters they did not agree with, altered others, and produced a new confession for themselves while maintaining a strong connection to the tradition of their predecessors. The second type of revision is one that we see very frequently in Systematic Theologies. A new systematic will be written by a thinker in the same tradition of former systematics in order to address new questions that have arisen in the life of the church or in the life of society. The intent is not to change the tradition, but merely give an account of how the established belief addresses the new problem.
Both of these types of revisions can be healthy, but the second type is what we specifically want to address, because obviously we appreciate greatly the system of belief put forth by the 1689 confession. As we are warned in the introduction, we should not merely change something in a confession because a theological trend has changed. Our motivation should be deeply rooted in Scripture and should serve a specific purpose. Waldron gives us an example of one such potential revision:
"The unfolding of error in history and the progress of the church's understanding and ability to express truth in words does occasionally require that formulas once sufficient to exclude error be strengthened and clarified. May there not be a place for expanding the Confession at this point and include an explicit adoption of the position that the Bible is verbally and plenarily inspired and a pointed statement that the Bible is inerrant in all that it affirms?"
Waldron is precisely on point in his concern. What he is proposing would not be inconsistent in any way with what the confession already teaches, it would simply address more clearly an issue that raised its head after 1677.
In the same vein, why not add a chapter in the confession that condemns the practice of abortion? Why not clearly state what is already implied about the nature of Christian ministry, specifically that it is men who are called to be the pastors and elders and ministers of the church and not women? These revisions would not conflict anything currently in the confessions, and they would address more clearly issues that are a greater challenge now then they were when the confession was written. Each of these visions would be just as fitting in the Westminster and Belgic confessions.
Conclusion
The Scripture is self-sufficient and self authenticating, and we as Christians are called to rely on its testimony for believing in its trustworthiness. Our confessions, in great contrast, do not endure in the same way, and the historical oddity of confession revision and composition effectively dying off after the 1600s is uncalled for and is a trend that needs to change. The Reformed faith has a lot to offer, and it should be willing to update itself in order to give what it has to offer to new generations of Christians, all the while staying true to the historic theology that we cherish so much.
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