Authority for Adventist Cognoscenti

Springboard for discussion a the May 7, 2010, gathering of The Friends of St Thomas.


The official doctrine of the Seventh-day Adventist Church is a list of 28 statements. Below is the introduction and first statement of that list.

Seventh-day Adventists accept the Bible as their only creed and hold certain fundamental beliefs to be the teaching of the Holy Scriptures. These beliefs, as set forth here, constitute the church's understanding and expression of the teaching of Scripture. Revision of these statements may be expected at a General Conference session when the church is led by the Holy Spirit to a fuller understanding of Bible truth or finds better language in which to express the teachings of God's Holy Word.

1.Holy Scriptures:
The Holy Scriptures, Old and New Testaments, are the written Word of God, given by divine inspiration through holy men of God who spoke and wrote as they were moved by the Holy Spirit. In this Word, God has committed to man the knowledge necessary for salvation. The Holy Scriptures are the infallible revelation of His will. They are the standard of character, the test of experience, the authoritative revealer of doctrines, and the trustworthy record of God's acts in history. (2 Peter 1:20, 21; 2 Tim. 3:16, 17; Ps. 119:105; Prov. 30:5, 6; Isa. 8:20; John 17:17; 1 Thess. 2:13; Heb. 4:12.)

These two paragraphs present a strong assertion of the authority and sufficiency of the Bible. They reflect the mindset that gave rise to Adventist society and theology. These paragraphs the perspective that fuels Adventist evangelism. People join the church because they are persuaded Adventist theology and prophetic interpretation is simply “what the Bible says.” From first grade through college Adventist students are taught Adventist doctrine and prophetic interpretation as the straightforward read out of the plain meaning of the Bible text. The Bible is all you need for pure doctrine and a moral life.

It sometimes happens that individuals who have spent decades living with Adventist theology and culture find themselves no longer persuaded that the Adventist reading of Scripture is the only honest, rational interpretation of the Bible. These maturing individuals discover the unquestioning credulity of their childhood is not sustainable when they open-mindedly examine the beliefs and questions of others. Some of these cognoscenti cope with the inability of their childhood religion to provide life-long certainty by simply transfering their allegiance to another self-contained system. They become evangelicals or Catholics or “true-believing” atheists. I find it hard to understand how this represents progress.

Other intellectuals recognize classic Adventist biblicism as both historically and spiritually sensible. Even if they as (usually older) individuals no longer view the Bible as a simple, straightforward handbook of Adventist doctrine, they cheerfully remain within the Adventist community. These happy agnostics view their present, more diffident, more global spirituality as a natural stage in spiritual and intellectual development, a development which for them began in the seedbed of Adventism and continues to find its niche in the ecology of Adventism.

It makes sense that most Adventists would continue to believe Adventist theology and prophetic interpretation is the natural, inescapable meaning of the Bible. That is what is taught in our evangelism and in our schools. It also is understandable that intellectuals, people who value a broad range of academic and artistic endeavor, would come to question classic Adventist biblicism. Earth science challenges Adventist beliefs regarding 6000 years. Source criticism raises questions about simple theories of revelation/inspiration. Ecumenical reading leads these intellectuals to appreciate the scholarship and piety of non-Adventist Christians and the spirituality of non-Christians. Over time, many intellectuals find themselves unable to affirm belief in any single source of authority. And the Bible, as understood by classic Adventism, is just such a single source.

So what can we say to someone who no longer believes in a single source of authority? If a person no longer believes in “The Bible and Bible Only,” is there any significant role left for the Bible?

Yes. Even for intellectuals who regard no single authority as final, even for the cognoscenti who are aware of the human processes behind the sacred text and the complicated sociological factors that shape how we interpret the text, the Bible retains its role as an authority in spiritual life.

When I call the Bible an authority, I have several things in mind. At minimum, it is a voice that must be heard. It has an ex officio place at the table of spiritual/moral/religious conversation. Its ex officio status is granted by the Christian community and, more specifically for us, by the formal authority structures and spiritual culture of Adventism. Another way to speak of it: the Bible is a teacher with tenure. It has been the leading instructor in our community far too long for it to be dismissed. We may argue with it. We cannot dismiss it. The Bible is an expert, a “leading authority,” that is the Bible is a repository of wisdom that is widely revered in our community. You cannot hope to make sense of our way of life without taking into account what the Bible says.


How does the Bible work as an authority in our lives?

A Corrective to Idiosyncrasy

It is easy for those who are highly educated and widely read to be seduced by their own minds. “I know” becomes a barrier to “I learn.” Erudition, can make us less capable of learning.

The Bible's stories, commandments, promises, ethical demands, threats of judgment provide a check against living on the basis of personal conviction or impulse alone. The classic preachers' proverb encapsulating this role: The job of a preacher is to afflict the comfortable and to comfort the afflicted. Everyone needs external input avoid the inherent dangers of unchecked self-referencing. The Bible is a powerful tool for countering excessive self-referencing. In part, this is because of the Bible's amazing diversity. If offers case studies on the danger of excessive mercy and excessive severity, the danger of doubt and the danger of credulity, the risk of fraternizing with infidels and the blessed potential of fraternizing with infidels. The Bible celebrates war and peacemaking, male leadership and female initiative, the wisdom of the aged and the clear-sightedness of children. If we allow the full diversity of the text to speak to us, it will be impossible to come up with any “simple,” no-brainer solution to real life problems. The Bible will drive us toward wisdom, prudence and humility.

The Bible as Language

The Bible provides a common language and set of metaphors that believers can use in debates about truth. The Bible story provides a grand story (a meta-narrative in the jargon of academia) that serves as a platform on which we can probe particular issues. This grand story with its common language and metaphors allows us to move more quickly to the actual issues at hand than would be possible if we had to create ad hoc the language and metaphors needed for exploration of profound ideas and significant decisions.

The Bible and Community

The Bible is activated only in community. No one reads the Bible “for him/herself.” This is simply not possible. Most of us read in translation which highlights our dependency on a community of people for our access to the Bible. Even if we were reading in the original language, our understanding of that language would come to us from the community. I cannot learn a language “by myself.” (Using books and tapes is still depending on others.) Language cannot exist apart from community. (And community cannot exist apart from language.) The Bible and the church community shape each other. The Bible is written within the community of believers. The life of those believers was the context in which the Bible writers wrote. Once written, the words of the Bible work to shape and reshape the community. And the community works to transmit and interpret the words afresh in each generation.

The Bible provides a flywheel, a sea anchor, an in-stream reservoir for the church. Attention to the Bible counters the attractiveness of ideological fads. On the other hand, the Bible also serves as a fulcrum for prophets and reformers seeking to bring about change. This complexity, the usefulness of the Bible for contradictory purposes, undermines the claims by competing theologians and preachers that we can achieve unity by agreeing to live by The Bible and Bible Only. The Bible and Bible Only hardly ever settles disputes in the church. The disputes arise precisely because we interpret the Bible differently.

Other Authorities

Living godly and wisely requires attention to several authorities. The Bible, yes, and human experience, science, history, our own consciences, the leading of the Holy Spirit and the testimony of other persons.

1.Human experience. When we learn that spanking children tends to increase violence, we do not have to wait for a Hebrew scholar to explain away the encouragement to child beating in the book of Proverbs. When we listen to the stories of homosexuals who grew up loving Jesus and going to church and praying for normality, we must reject Paul's statements about the etiology of homosexual desire.
2.Science. Science is not infallible. Scientists are not objective. Still science is a powerful and useful source of information. It is appropriate to expect the sciences of earth history and biology to give us significant information. This information ought not be dismissed just because it disagrees with the plain reading of Genesis One. On the other hand, just because “science” says something doesn't make it true.
3.Holy Spirit. Human experience. Great moves forward in the history of the church more readily attributed to the episodic work of the Holy Spirit than to a simple development of Bible scholarship. (See below on segregation.)
4.Conscience. Humans appropriately insist that any reading of the Bible that promotes injustice or suffering or oppression or disease or war or poverty is a faulty “revelation of God's will.” The Bible itself includes stories of individuals holding God to external standards of justice.
5.History. We find help interpreting the Bible by reading the 2000 years of Christian history and sometimes by paying attention to Jewish history as well. “God's word to me today” is a useful approach to understanding the Bible. It is made richer by (and is sometimes corrected by) when it is informed by the story of what God has been doing through the millennia.

None of these “other authorities” is supreme or ultimate or beyond challenge. The Bible is not bulldozed by the well-established conclusions of any of these other authorities. On the other hand, the “plain reading” of Scripture does not automatically trump the wisdom of these other authorities. Because we believe in a universe, that is a unitary reality encompassing all that is, that was created by God, we do not believe that the testimony of the Bible automatically obviates the evidence of the rest of creation. We live best when we open our minds to the input from the Bible and from conscience, human experience, the inner work of the Spirit, the history of God's dealings with the church and the entirety of humanity.

The ultimate purpose of biblical authority is love, justice, order, harmony, creativity, solace, procreation, beauty, intimacy, sustainability, peace.


Some further notes on limits to “sheer biblicism.

The Bible itself, when we take it as it reads, without filtering it through the sieve of what “we know it says” is highly complex just on its face. For example, does the Bible sanction violence against one's enemies? The answer is yes and no. “You have heard that it was said, 'An eye for an eye . . . But I tell you: do not take revenge on someone who wrongs you” (Matthew 5:38). This single verse presents counter claims: Moses' rule limiting vengeance and Jesus' rule prohibiting it. Another example: Does the Bible absolutely require the observance of Saturday as a holy day? “Remember the Sabbath day to keep it holy” (Exodus 20:8). Cf. “One person thinks a certain day is more important than other days, while someone else thinks all days are the same. Each should be firmly persuaded in his own mind” (Romans 14:5).

These contradictory ideas have traditional resolutions. However, the text as it stands does not provide a simple rule. Instead it compels us to look at the issues of violence and Sabbath-keeping from multiple perspectives. It requires us to consider how others inside and outside our own particular denominational community have interpreted these passages. If we do due diligence, we are more likely to act wisely than if we ordered our lives on the basis of some single, simple rule.

I am comfortable with classic Adventist answers to the questions raised by the passages above regarding the Sabbath. However, I can see how honest, smart, devout people might interpret them otherwise. Our interpretation does not “violate” Scripture, neither is our interpretation the only possible rational, honest interpretation. Since I am very much at home in the Adventist community, I am happy to interpret the Scriptures accordingly. However, I can no longer affirm without qualification, “They are the standard of character, the test of experience, the authoritative revealer of doctrines, and the trustworthy record of God's acts in history.” When it comes to doctrine, the authority is in both the Book and the community. When it comes to experience, the Bible tests experience and the Bible is tested by experience. The qualification I would add to the official statement is just this: It's more complicated than that. (There is, of course, no call to actually insert these words into the official statement. Intellectuals automatically add this qualification to every categorical statement any way. And for people early in their spiritual journey, highlighting complications is unhelpful and sometimes harmful.)

An example of the inadequacy of sheer biblicism to establish a just society: In the South in the US, the strongest bastions of segregation were Christian churches whose preachers loudly declaimed their commitment to the inerrant Word of God. It was other churches whose preachers quoted the words of the prophets about justice and the promised land that provided the human forces that toppled Jim Crow. The churches allied with segregation emphasized the Bible's curses and its darkest statements about the evil behavior and sinful nature of humanity. The churches that worked for liberation also spoke of human evil. They spoke even more of divine promises and power.

In this case the Bible and Bible Only did not function as an effective standard for character. Conservative White Protestants read the Bible as a condemnation of uppity Negroes. Two hundred years of Southern White Bible reading had done absolutely nothing to awaken their consciences. It took African Americans reading the same Bible and finally engaging in civil disobedience before the watching eye of national media to force open the door just a crack. It was Bible plus a determined church plus the blood of martyrs that finally awakened at least some Southern Whites to the character questions involved in segregation.

An example of the ineffectiveness of the Bible and Bible Only to bring about consensus among Christians: Seventh-day Adventists are the leading exponents of Sabbath-keeping. Their Sabbath advocacy is based on a thorough-going biblicism. The denominations most vehement in their condemnation of Adventist Sabbath advocacy are precisely the conservative Protestant groups whose Biblicism is even more radical than that of Adventists. (I say more radical because of their belief in inerrancy. It is not the words of the Bible, it is how we interpret them.