TheologyThoughts

Alan wrote the following on the presybeterians-opc list. I was going to put it in the comments section, but decided it deserved an entry of its own:

Barry, et al.,

Thanks for you review of Elliott's book. I wanted to add a little
bit of my own evaluation on one particular point.

You wrote:

"Throughout the book, I found selective quotation and reporting of
events which enabled Elliott to provide the construction he wanted
to place on his evidence. As another example, his comparison of the
Auburn Affirmation and the current state of the OPC amounted to
demonstrating certain verbal or surface similarities without proving
that the same underlying hermeneutic was involved (including his
discussion on hermeneutics). This is another major logical fallacy,
of the type that are frequent throughout the book. Similarity does
not mean identity, and the report of one committee does not
necessarily reflect the majority opinion of the denomination. I am
referring specifically (but not exclusively) to his comments on the
OPC Committee on Creation: I am not convinced at all that
Elliott’s interpretation of the report is accurate, but he
certainly does not adequately demonstrate that it supports his
interpretation."

Having served on the Committee on Creation, I was very interested in
Elliott's comments on the report. I believe those comments were in
a part of the book that was also printed in an issue of the Trinity
Review a few months ago.

Having read the Trinity Review and your review of the book, I want
to assure you and the other list members that Elliott has not
understood the Report correctly.

First, not all the report was written by all the members of the
committee. Most of the references that Elliott cites are from
sections of the report that were written to explain the different
views of the creation days. For the most part these sections were
written by committee members who held to the particula viewpoint.
Thus, "the days of normal length" section was written by a committee
member who holds that view. Dr. Coppes wrote the section on "days
of undetermined length"; Lee Irons (who left the committee about
half way through our work) wrote much of the section on the
Framework Hypothesis, I believe Brian Estelle helped on that
section; Brian Estelle also wrote the section on the Day-Age view
and Peter Wallace wrote the section on the Analogical Day view. Dr.
Estelle's section on Day-Age was the only section written by a
committee member who did not hold to the view he was writing on.

The appendices were written to fill in some of the background
material on Ancient Near Eastern (ANE)literature, hermeneutics and
also to provide a forum for some vigorous critiques of both the
Framework and Analogical views. The articles are signed and,
therefore, represent the views of their authors. The committee
thought they were useful to the church and ought to be included in
the report.

The Preface, Introduction and Synopsis, The Days of Creation and
Confessional Subscription and the section on Creation, Credentialing
and Corporate Culture were written by various committee members, but
were worked over by the whole committee. Thus, these sections
appear under the hand of the whole committee.

When Elliott quotes (actually he doesn't quote more than a few words
with no context) from the report he cites several sections that
represent the views of an individual viewpoint and should not be
attributed to the whole committee, much less the Assembly or the
OPC. If he had understood the layout of the report, he might have
seen that what he was attributing to the OPC as a whole was, in
fact, part of the presentation of one viewpoint.

Elliott seems to take particular umbrage at a term we used to
describe the "inducting" effect of old Westminster Seminary. We
used the term "hermeneutic of trust" to describe the phenomenon that
existed for many years in the OPC as a result of the fact that
almost all OPC ministers come into the ministry through Westminister
Seminary. Even though there may have doctrinal differences and
interpretive differences, for the most part the men who came to the
church through the seminary had trust in one another's fidelity to
the system of doctrine taught in Scripture and found in the
secondary standards of the church.

Westminster Seminary in Philadelphia no longer performs this
function. For good or ill, there is no one institution that serves
as an "induction center" for OPC ministers. In some way the OPC's
Ministerial Training Institute is an attempt to recapture that
function, but only time will tell if it is succeeding.

Now, I find that, in the context in which it is discussed in the
report, a "hermeneutic of trust" should be a healthy thing. Might
there be times in a church's history when trust is undermined by
doctrinal deviations and confessional infidelity? Of course, and I
would not want to say that such has not happened to some extent in
the OPC. But the very fact that there has been lively debate,
committee reports and even judicial action over doctrinal and
confessional issues in that past few years of our history should
tell us that we are not blindly following the pied pipers of
unbelief down the path of neo-liberalism. Elliott gives no sense of
understanding or even attempting to understand what the committee
was saying in this section of the report.

If someone wants to find what the OPC as a church (i.e., through
actions of General Assemblies) believes about the first chapters of
Genesis, one must consult the Scripture, the Confession and
catechisms. Other than these standards we have no other teaching as
a church. If you want to see what the Assembly did with the Report
on Creation Days, look at the recommendations that the Assembly
adopted. I include them in full below:

The 71st General Assembly of the Orthodox Presbyterian Church
received a Report of the Committee to Study the Views of Creation.
After discussing the report and the recommendations found in the
report the assembly passed the following motions with regard to the
Report of the Committee on Views of Creation:

1. That the General Assembly recommend that presbyteries should
expect a ministerial candidate to articulate his view on the days of
creation with a proper recognition of the hermeneutical, exegetical,
and confessional considerations involved. The following kinds of
questions should be used by presbyteries when examining a candidate,
whatever his view of the days of creation, in order to show that his
doctrine of creation is consistent with Scripture and the subordinate
standards:

A. Does the candidate affirm the following and can he articulate what
he understands by them:

1. creation ex nihilo
2. the federal headship of Adam
3. the covenant of works
4. the doctrine of the Sabbath
5. the sufficiency and perspicuity of Scripture
6. the historicity of the creation account

B. Does the candidate understand and affirm the priority of Scripture
in the relationship between special and general revelation?

C. Does the candidate understand and affirm the hermeneutical
principles that are expressed in Scripture and in the subordinate
standards?

D. Is the candidate able to address and refute the errors of the
theory of evolution both exegetically and theologically?

E. Can the candidate articulate and affirm the covenantal structure
of the plan of redemption as found in Genesis 1-3?

2. That the General Assembly urge members of presbyteries and
sessions to uphold the peace of the church by addressing theological
issues within the church primarily through educational,
administrative, judicial, or other constitutional means, and not
merely by voting for or against candidates for office.

3. That the General Assembly encourage the Committee on Christian
Education and its Subcommittee on Ministerial Training to seek ways
of working more closely with the candidates and credentials
committees of presbyteries in order to bring ministerial candidates
to a fuller understanding of the confessional standards, the Book of
Church Order, the Minutes of the General Assembly and the history of
the Orthodox Presbyterian Church.

4. That the General Assembly refer the report to the presbyteries and
sessions for their study and thank the members of the Committee to
Study the Views of Creation for their arduous labors and for their
expressed desire to maintain the purity, peace and unity of the
church. The General Assembly recognizes that the concept of the
animus imponentis (the intention of theimposing body) is new to many
people in the Orthodox Presbyterian Church. Therefore, the Assembly
draws attention to the following:

The concept of the animus imponentis may not be employed so as to
make a wax nose of the Standards and to pit the church's
interpretation of the Standards against the plain words of the
Standards themselves, particularly inasmuch as the Standards
generally are thought to contain but few obscurities. Rather, animus
imponentis, rightly understood and employed, means simply that the
church as a whole in its integrity interprets its own constitution
and that such interpretation, and not those of private individuals
or lesser judicatories, is decisive. (Report of the Committee on the
Views of Creation, pages 1659-1660, lines 2704-2710)

Now, does that sound like the Auburn Affirmation? I don't think so.

With regard to the few quotes and citations that Elliott included on
the report of the Committee on Creation Days, I can safely say that
he did not understand the report and he did not fairly represent the
views of the committee nor the Assembly, nor the OPC.

ARPontier
OPC Minister
Lakewood, CA