Woman
ordination: using analogia entis as source for decision
Koot van wyk (DLitt et Phil; ThD), Visiting Professor, Kyungpook
National University, Sangju Campus, South Korea, Conjoint lecturer of Avondale
College
Decision is a cognitive process that
involves lifestyle attitudes and activities that creates the appeal for a
leaning to or away from an external standard like the Bible or ethics of the
Bible as source for decision-making. It was said by Hendrik Stoker, the South
African Christian Calvinist Philosopher: the way you live determines the way
you think and the way you think determines your method and your method will
determine your final product. (my own paraphrase of his philosophical
jargon). Analogia entis means that the person makes a decision on the basis of his/her own
lifestyle attitudes. The person uses “table-talks” or facebook opinions or
twitter-chats or internet blogs as a source to decide whether aspects of the Bible
are still valid or not. A person who employs analogia entis in the
decision-making process has decided that the Bible can only meant and that
today’s humans need to use their own experience to decide their course of life
today. The Bible is outdated. Analogia entis or lifestyle decision-making becomes Rationalism. The Rationalists
of the past used reason and logic as their main driving force to work out the
mathematics of whether something is right or wrong for today. They will argue
that “we are doing a lot of wrong things already so let us do more wrong”. To
put it more relevant: “there are a number of things in the Bible that we do not
keep any longer so let us add women ordination to the list”. Wayward children in the faith can
have a devastating impact upon a mother or father’s decision-making process.
Children who lives secular lives and who are no longer following the corners
and borders of the Bible as blueprint for living and also not the Spirit of
Prophecy, will rationalize their wrongs as right and reasoning why they no
longer are obliged to follow the Bible as blueprint for their lives. The Bible
is seen as antique and they live in modern times. They fool themselves that
their modern ideas antiquating the Spirit of Prophecy Victorian thinking and
also that of the Ancient Levant thinking of the Bible. They separate meant from
means and lock the Bible and Spirit of Prophecy in their own times in a
dichotomy of shelving the one and bring out experience and reason to sense with
arithmetic and logic their own course. At the end of their discussion they add
the Spirit and good characteristics of the Spirit and also Jesus and His
embrazing love with a mixture of Paul’s tenets that we should not judge each
other and the perfect modern Rationalism is born. Rationalism is “Bible-less”
decision-making based on one’s lifestyle and reasoning outside and loose from
the Bible. Many scholars in the Adventist
church were divorced. The liberal icon G K was divorced and so was the liberal
icon R C. Someone who has gone through an experience of divorce has sunk into
the mud of Rationalization since from every corner someone is blaming. The
person has to justify his/her actions by adding on blame on someone or
something else constantly. This mode of operation for months and years can have
a devastating effect on the balance and harmony of the person’s cognitive
decision-making process. After years of fighting to remain standing, the mode
of fighting means a leaning to one side. It means either a slightly more
liberal or a slightly more conservative. There is a strong push-drive in either
of these positions. When a person is embraced by either of these camps, it can
lead to a motivation in the direction of building up a theory of life that
becomes the trademark for doing biblical and spirit of prophecy analysis. They
are either very dangerous or very helpful, depending on which direction they
are leaning. If they are conservative they have laid their analogia entis
at the foot of the cross and abide by the external objective standard of the
Bible and Spirit of Prophecy. If they are liberal they are placing analogia
entis on a pedestal and the Bible and Spirit of Prophecy actually in a
wastebasket but since that is unbecoming, they will now and then quote from it
just to indicate that they are still religious. The “I do it my way”
Christian is one who will argue that one should not take the Bible too
literally. They will use a list of examples to excuse themselves from the Bible
as showing that one cannot do what the Bible is asking. They will emphasize that it is the
spirit of the Word that counts not the letter of the Word. It is the same
arguments that my Calvinistic relatives used against my parents appeal to
follow the Ten Commandments and keep Sabbath. They will argue that it is maybe
biblically true that we should not ordain but that for contemporal
practicality, women should be ordained since in China only females can be
pastors. We now know that it is not true and that of the 28 Korean registered
churches in China, none of them had a female for pastor as a professor of Calvin
College in Michigan showed in a co-authored book in 2014. One example from French Rationalism
can be given from the book of John Hurst (1865) when the skeptic Athanase
Coquerel advised a young man: “You live in a progressive age, and why do you not progressive
yourself? Your fathers believed the old Confessions, imagined Christ to be
divine, and Scriptures inspired. We do not blame them much, for they knew no
better. But, if you follow in their footsteps, the world will never give you
any credit for originality; your slow chariot will move on in the old rut; you
will never accomplish anything; your generation will be in advance of you. Be a
man! The field of usefulness, prominence, and honor, opens before you. Think of
yourself! The Bible is a book of the past, and you should have more manliness
and independence than to be guided by its declarations” (Hurst 1865: 409).
Coquerrel also said “It is high time that we renounce the
puerile, disrespectful, and contradictory worship of the letter. The letter killeth”.
With China Adventism in mind and their system of state appointed
pastors we can learn from Hurst: “The regular pastors [in France of 1863] when first nominated by
the Consistory, are afterwards confirmed by the Government. They cannot be removed
except by the action of the state. This is the reason why so many Rationalistic
pastors are now in full possession of prominent Protestant pulpits in France.
No synod, consistory, or presbytery has power to try them for heresy. In fact,
there is no standard of doctrine by which heresy can be tested. There being no
General Assembly, with power either to establish new standards of doctrine or
to give vitality to the old ones, the pulpits of the Reformed church are open
to every form of teaching that may profess to be Christian” (Hurst 1865: 406-407).
Rationalists will eventually reveal
themselves at the General Conference: “But its [Rationalism] premise was, ‘We will accept nothing between
the two lids of this Book if our Reason cannot fathom it.’ Hence, all truth,
every book of the Bible, even the sacraments of the church, came in for their
share of discussion and pruning. In this respect Rationalism takes rank as one
of the most corrupt tendencies of infidelity which appears anywhere upon the page
of ecclesiastical history. But do we find its spirit mild and amiable? Some of
the Rationalists were naturally men of admirable temperament, but this was no
effect of their faith. The most lamentable feature of this whole system was the
ruthless character of its warfare. The professions of love for the Scriptures
and the church, which we so often meet with in the writings of the early
Rationalistic divines, were soon laid aside. The demon of destruction presided
over the storm. And the work of ruin was rapid, by forced marches and through
devious paths – in the true military style. When the hour of fight came there
was no swerving. Men full of the spirit of a bad cause will sometimes fight as
valiantly as others for a good one; but it is then that God determines the
victor. The evangelical Christians of Protestant Christianity saw their banner
captured by their foes. And it was their foes who gave the first fire; but they
will not be so fortunate in the last encounter. ..Some of the Rationalists were
John-like in all they did, save when they discussed the holy truths of
inspiration. Then they were possessed by the evil spirit. Nowhere can we find a
more deplorable example of the disastrous effects of a false creed on the human
character. It is an infallible law of our nature that the mind, not less than
the body, becomes depraved by an impure diet”
(Hurst 1865: 34).
If one wants to listen to the Word of God it is well to go to
Isaiah 3:12: “My people, their oppressors are children and women [wenashim]
rule [mashelu] over them. O my people your leaders mislead you and
confuse the course of your paths.” Dear God We are to keep to your Word though the heavens fall and follow your
Word rather than the vote of the majority as Ellen White in Great Controversy
595 indicates. Keep us faithful Lord and bring understanding among those who
are faithless in our remnant. Amen.
Source for China: Joel Carpenter, Kevin R. den Dulk. Christianity in
Chinese Public Life: Religion, Society, and the Rule of Law. Palgrave
Pivot, 2014
Source for Rationalism John F. Hurst, History of Rationalism (New York:
Charles Scribner & CO., 1865).