New Nicea: Embracing Conjecture.

Historically the church has undergone tumultuous battles with competing theological movements. The Gnostics Christians (and the individual communities which had different Gnostic gospels as their rallying point), Marcionist Christians, Arian Christians, Origenistic Christians, et al., are all fine examples of this point. In fact, one of my college professors made the point that we have the anachronistic temptation to read Christianity as originally having a generally synonymous theological milieu the ancient churches.

This would stand in stark contrast to the “fallen” foes of Christianity. While this same professor does go on to argue against the early church’s utilization of apostolic succession as a mean for maintaining power over her parishioners, one can see through examination of the socioeconomic class of these foes (the Gnostics for instance) that the messianic affinity and extremely high Christologies serve as a means to claim the status of Christian while disembarking from the normal responsibilities that Christians undertook. Just harass John Wright for two minutes on Thomas and the Gnostic Christians; I am sure you could get a nice lecture on the matter.

The Christians took on creeds and doctrines as polemic to counteract these perceived Christian foes even though the schismatic nature of their own theology was still, to a relevant degree, extant. The Johanine, Petrine, Jamesian, and Pauline Christians seemed to win out over the other Christians at the conversion of Constantine because of the dialogue that took place between these schools. While there was at least some hostility there also seemed to be a considerable exchange of ideas. Theoretically, surmised this professor, this would seem to suggest that after the death of Jesus Christ there was not a significant amount of stable theology that had developed by the church (though technically they would still be Jews at this point in time). The death of Jesus Christ would be a theologically EXPLOSIVE event of contemplation, extrapolation, and shear conjecture.

But as the foes of the church mounted theological arms the battle of the thinkers began (the biblical codification of which is seen most explicitly in the John’s writings in the NT). But the problem that this poses for me is stated thusly: if the theological formations were codified based on a large degree of conjecture to combat Christianity’s foes instead of empirically visible data that the church was exposed to, what are the implications for the modern church which has expanded upon these ideas/doctrines/creeds in much more broad strokes.

For instance, The Nicean creed has its trinity listed in each of the component parts. However, like the earliest Christian thought it doesn’t elaborate very much at all upon the Holy Spirit except to acknowledge it’s existence. In fact, one could even make a good historical case for a period of time in the earliest stages of church thought where there is only Binitarian ontology instead of Trinitarian ontology. One could argue that Trinitarian thought is one thing that progressed as an interpolation of the accounts in the early apostolic writings. But whatever one thinks about the earliest Christian ideas of the Holy Spirit, One has to at least concede that that part of the trinity was grossly un developed when the Nicean creed was settled. Subsequently, the council of Constantinople was convened in 381 and purposely didn’t call delegates from the Eastern Church. At this council the famous theological word “Filioque” was employed meaning “and from the son” in which they pretty much waved the biggest theological middle finger in the history of the church at the eastern Christians, to say nothing of the fact that the Holy Spirit was, historically, a theologically dubious concept to begin with. This reigned in the infamous distain the eastern and western churches held for each other and still do. To this day they both cling to their altered version of the original creed and their mutual distain for each other.

All this to say, a huge schism still lay within the church catholic based upon an age old conflict that was predicated upon a probable interpolation to begin with. Furthermore, the schism has grown through the expansion of the theological doctrines of each church. As I look at this trend of the continual fragmentation of the church I can foresee a second trend that is heading on an intersecting trajectory. The modern world is quickly loosing it’s interest in the Christian church because of it’s lack of realistic answers or even utter relevance to modern issues.

A great instance of this is the plight of women in America. A theological summation is made by “Paul” in 1 Timothy 2:11 about women’s role in the church based upon a semi- accurate recounting of the events in the first chapters in genesis. Since then the church on a whole has taken on a very sexist stance towards women. Society at large is increasingly finding this kind of sexism unacceptable. Now the church has rebutted in a variety of ways. Frequently it employs hermeneutics to try to cut the legs out from under “paul.” But what if Christians were to admit that significant extrapolation and interpolation had taken place that was already predicated upon significant conjecture in the first place? Well then they would have to admit that other theological conclusions and expansions that they have drawn upon Genesis were based on conjecture as well! And wouldn’t it be disastrous for everyone involved if we had to admit when we don’t know something for sure?! We wouldn’t be able to chastise each other for doctrinal differences, which were never meant to criticize our own in the first place!

Stanley Hauerwas made an important point in unleashing scripture: just as important for Christianity was the protestant revolution’s distribution of bibles to take power out of the hands of the magistrate, is now equally important to take those bibles back. Just as important for the survival of Christianity against her wealthy elitist foes was the formation of the creeds and doctrines, is redacting those that have an extreme historical likelihood of being expanded upon conjecture. The livelihood of the church may depend on it.