God Beyond Religion: The Hard Problem of Christian Scripture

 Let me begin with this. I love the Christian Scripture. I am not hating on the scripture. I am deeply questioning what orthodoxy has taught about scripture over the last 2000 years, and I am troubled by the canonization process, the motivation for it, and some of the literature that was eliminated from it. I believe that the preponderance of the evidence in the New Testament suggest that spiritual discernment should over-ride scriptural assertions and therein lies the hard problem of scripture. I will also address the Pauline pastoral passages that have been used to develop a doctrine of scripture that I believe to be erroneous. And, I think far too much credence has been given apostolic succession and the early church fathers with respect to this problem.

I think that the hard problem with Christian scripture is every bit as difficult as the hard problem of consciousness. Yet, until it is solved, it will simply drive more and more people away from being a follower of Jesus Christ. For some that is fine, but I am writing this to those who cannot deny the beneficial relationship they have with the Christ and see following his teaching as a viable way of life. When I say follow his teaching, I am not referring to evangelical or orthodox dogma. I am referring to parts of the Sermon on the Mount, his teaching on loving one another, his insistence that we are in God and that God is in us. I am referring to the teaching of the Logos, the Word, and its development over the millennia beginning with Egyptian Hermeticism. I am referring to all the mystical revelation that Paul received with respect to love, the fruit of the spirit, and the new humanity. And finally, but in no way exhaustively, I am referring to his teaching that each of us are divine and human.

While I am no longer sure that Christianity in its broad sense is profitable for humanity, I am certain that being a follower of Jesus Christ and acknowledging everything that goes along with the cosmic Christ and Christ consciousness is viable and beneficial for those who have been born into western civilization. While it could be of benefit to others, it is certainly not a must for everyone. Orthodoxy and Evangelicalism have already sullied the name of Christianity with its inflexible insistence on exclusivity.

What is the hard problem of Christian scripture? It is its misuse and miss interpretation. Jesus told the Jews in John’s gospel that they were searching the scripture to find life and that was the wrong reason. His claim was that the purpose of the scripture was to explain that life was found only in him, their Messiah. If we switch over into Greek culture and the Greek language, it would be that the purpose of scripture was to find life by finding “the Christ.” So, in Jesus’ view, the purpose of scripture was to find Christ consciousness. The Talmud backs this up by saying, “Every prophet only prophesied for the days of the Messiah;” (~Cohen, Abraham. Everyman's Talmud (p. 477). BN Publishing. Kindle Edition.)  

It is a hard problem because Jesus also said that to find and understand Christ consciousness, one would need the comforter or the spirit. It is the comforter or the spirit that would guide one into all truth. The one thing that Jesus did not say is search the scripture for in them you will find an inerrant God given set of rules for faith and practice. That is nowhere in scripture. He did however show where it points to him in Luke chapter 24. This makes the hard problem a quandary. Does one follow the Spirit or does one follow the book? And, what if, God forbid, the voice of the Spirit of Christ tells you something that contradicts the book?

So, how did we arrive at the place where there is a hard problem of Christian scripture? Actually, it came about early on in Christianity. If not at the end of the first century, it most definitely came about very early in the second century. How so you ask? Well, there was early on a variety of Christianity’s, that developed a variety of Christian scripture. There was disagreement about what was and what was not Christian scripture. If one takes the time to familiarize oneself with the early heresies, one finds that there is much in some of them that makes sense and rings true. That is not to say that they had entire truth, but they had valid points of mystical, spiritual truth. In my view, the preponderance of the evidence in accepted scripture substantiates this.

Marcion of Sinope immediately comes to mind. While I do not accept everything written about his heresy, I rather like his take on Paul and some of the other earlier apostles. He thought Paul more right than the others. He only included ten of Paul’s letters in his canon, Yes, first and second Corinthians was in the group of ten, and no, I am not in favor of silencing women, accepting slavery, or excommunicating people but there is a lot of mystical revelation from the creative source in Paul’s work.

I haven’t mentioned the other heresies for the sake of brevity but suffice it to say that the variety in the first 200 years, points to a diversity that is far more eclectic, synchronistic, and inclusive. Again, I should point out that the Talmud shows that there was sometimes irreconcilable disagreement with the interpretation of the original Jewish canon amongst the rabbis.

Evangelical Christianity, and Orthodoxy for that matter, have tried to eliminate the hard problem of scripture by canonizing certain early Christian works and discarding others. They even went so far as to burn some of them, and we would not know what they said were it not for a serendipitous find in the mid twentieth century. The Nag Hammadi Library was found in 1945 and the Dead Sea Scrolls were found in 1947.

Sola Scriptura Does Not Solve the Hard Problem:

Sola Scriptura does not solve the hard problem of scripture, it exacerbates it. Up until the Reformation, two things informed the church. The handed down apostles teaching and the scripture. Further, at the time of the Reformation, it was taught that salvation was only found in the church. The church held the keys to the kingdom and therefore were the sole arbiter of all things Christian. The original reformers were not claiming sola scriptura beyond salvation. The five sola’s of the reformation were faith alone, Christ alone, scripture alone, grace alone, to the glory of God alone, and this all simply related to salvation. The rest of the apostle’s teaching was accepted by the so-called Protestants. The Roman Catholic Church had the magisterium in addition to the scripture, and the Orthodox Church had the Patristic Fathers which is similar to the magisterium. The fact is that before the Reformation there was never a time when the scripture alone was sufficient. This coincides nicely with what Jesus said about what the comforter or the Spirit would do.

Paul’s pastoral epistles are the place where the doctrine of inerrancy and infallibility come into view. The problem is that they were quite likely not written by Paul. If by a slim chance they were written by Paul it was late in the first century and was written to force an adherence to the rule of a clerical class of presbyters. Still when one examines 2 Timothy 3:16 in context, one finds that even there, the scripture was only profitable in a redemptive way. Paul tells timothy that the scripture would make one wise unto salvation. It is undeniable that 2 Peter was written in the middle of the second century. While very likely by a disciple of Peter, who likely knew him, it was written at a later time when it had begun to be important to establish authority. It is unwise to use any of these passages to overthrow Jesus assertion that the comforter, the Spirit would be the one to guide into all truth.

So, the hard problem of scripture can only be solved by allowing the Spirit to guide one into all truth. This would not be as difficult as one thinks if the doctrines of sola scriptura and inerrancy were set aside. It would be possible to discern what is mystical revelation from God and what is merely cultural input by judging it by the definition of the fruit of the Spirit and love given by the apostle Paul. That alone should be the standard for judging if a message is from the source.