Seminary is a great experience!
Coming out here I did not know what to expect. But one thing I did not want was to be given “the answer book” for Christianity. My faith and theology has taken a few punches, and it has also been built up. Honestly there have been times when I’ve thought “Professor, just tell me what I am ‘supposed’ to believe because my brain is starting to hurt with this intake of information.” But I am so very glad I am being challenged and forced to reconcile thoughts and theories for myself.
We have been studying for our Old Testament midterm this past week and I wanted to share this nugget of information with all of our readers (though many of you might already know this).
Hear what our great Reformation leaders had to say about Copernicus because he believed the earth went around the sun instead of the sun going around the earth.
“People give ear to an upstart astrologer who strove to show that the earth revolves, not the heavens or the firmament, the sun and the moon…. This fool wishes to reverse the entire scheme of astrology; but sacred Scripture tells us that Joshua commanded the sun to stand still, not the earth.” Martin Luther
“The world also is stabilized, that it cannot be moved” (citing Ps.93) “Who will venture to place the authority of Copernicus above that of the Holy Spirit?” John Calvin
Don’t get me wrong, I greatly appreciate these men for their contribution to the Christian faith!
It is just interesting to think about issues we call other people “fools” about today when they might just be right…
I am not thinking of anything in particular, just something to ponder.
(Sidenote: most people/scholars today who hold to the inerrancy of the Bible do include as a qualification that biblical writers used phenomenological language)
Title explanation: Galileo was excommunicated from the church because he also promoted the theory that the sun revolved around the earth… but then they let him back in during the 1990s J
P.S. More Old Testament stuff will be posted once we get our grades back from the essay portion of our tests.
Isn't it funny that Luther opposed the authority of the Papacy and councils because they had so often contradicted themselves? His authority was the scripture and 'inner guidance of the Holy Spirit' and yet following what he thought was 'scripture and inner guidance' put him on the wrong side of the Copernicus issue.
ReplyDeleteWhat I have been wondering lately is, is it better to have one interpretation through the Church or to have everyone interpreting it in their own way? I think the Reformation got WAY out of control. It seems to me that both approaches will produce wrong and misguided theology but perhaps there would be less division and ill-will if we all agreed to be wrong together. And, nowadays any bloke on the street feels that their interpretation is equally valid to the next person's. Perhaps the Pre-Reformation Catholic church was on to something when they said only the Pope had 'right' interpretation.
I certainly don't think the Pope is the only person who can interpret, nor does he get it right all the time. But perhaps we should leave the interpretation to trained biblical scholars and not to Joe-blow the 'well intentioned' idiot who doesn't know the first thing about right interpretation. (and for the most part I would put myself in the 'well intentioned idiot' category, though i do have aspirations to move out of it someday)
Not that we all have to agree exactly on everything, there can still be whistleblowers but perhaps it would be best to keep it within one tradition.
I don't know. Just some of what I have been thinking this week.
Ha. Leave it to me to post a comment like this on your blog.