By:
Nadir Aqueel Ansari
Sources of Christian Theology
Bible is the basic source for Christian Theology. This is a position to
which the Christian opinion has now crystallized. This does not however mean
that other sources like a) Tradition, b) Reason and c) Religious Experience
have had a minor role in the formation of Christian dogma, which together
with d) the Bible constitute the sum total of theological sources.
However, for the time being, let us confine ourselves to the Bible; other
sources would be examined separately. Now if we turn to the Bible we must
examine its authenticity first. This is important because the Christian
world takes the Bible as the Word of God and believes in the inerrancy of
the Bible.
Muslim position on authenticity of the Bible
Let me explain the Muslim position first on the meaning and significance of
the scripture. Muslims understand that Bible was a collection of books
revealed to prophets and messengers of God. These books were however
subjected to human interpolations in history. Interpolation include
insertion, deletion and corruption of biblical texts. The textual corruption
was so extensive and massive, that Bible no more remained a reliable and
authentic source of knowledge regarding the original teachings of those
prophets and messengers. This is not to deny that Bible does not contain any
truth. This is far from true. Rather, the Muslims would believe that a lot
of the original content is still available in biblical pages. Yet, the
corruption in the text has left the biblical literature unworthy of
theological reconstruction.
Significance of Reliable Sources of religious knowledge
Religion is an extremely important issue. Correct religious knowledge is the
cornerstone of religious belief and action. One cannot be careless and
negligent in religious matters. Religions like Judaism, Christianity and
Islam teach that correct faith and action leads to eternal bliss and a way
of life based on erroneous belief and action leads to eternal punishment.
Religion, thus, is not restricted to our names and identities in this world.
It governs our destinies. It is therefore imperative to be extremely
cautious in this matter. We should base our faith on a definitely reliable
source. Bible does not qualify for that.
This is no more a sensational position - at least not after the appearance
of the Holy Qur'an. Muslims, from the very beginning, believed that the
Bible was not capable of giving us the correct picture of what God demands
of men. Europe however learnt this later when the academic works of Muslim
scholars became available to them. The Muslim scholars in Spain openly
challenged the authenticity of Bible and the marked impact of Muslim
position on the Western world can be observed in history soon after. Now,
even among Christians, a large number of scholars agree that Bible is not a
reliable document.
Nature and extent of Biblical Corruption
Bible is replete with errors and inconsistencies. These inconsistencies are
not confined to words, letters and punctuation. We know that a number of
biblical books are disputed between the Protestants and Catholics. There are
books that are believed by Catholics to be inspired whereas the Protestants
do not agree. This scale of difference cannot be ignored by saying that
there is a difference in readings and pronunciations. Authors of most of the
books in Bible are enshrouded in mist. Some of these books were written
centuries after the Prophets to whom they are attributed. In other cases the
same incident is presented in two or more divergent versions which are
irreconcilable. A number of books of the Bible were apparently lost in the
mill of history and just could not reach us.
Has biblical corruption affected doctrinal content of the Bible?
Sometimes I hear people say that even if the biblical literature has been
corrupted, it still provides a valuable basis for salvation. They argue that
there has been textual corruption in the Bible, but somehow the corruption
has not affected the real significance of its message. To such a naïve
suggestion I can only wonder. How can a document still be reliable, when it
has been shown to be false and incorrect on hundreds of occasions? This
would mean that no historical document can be termed as unreliable because
it may, after all, contain an element of truth also! Such elements of truth
are there in the Bible too. Nobody thinks that the original books of the
Prophets were exterminated and were rewritten afresh, without leaving an
iota of truth in their contents. Massive biblical corruption is a fact and
this does not exclude the possibility of truth in it. Rather, it contains a
lot of divine guidance and historical truth. Yet, the extent of corruption
makes it only a secondary source of truth, which we cannot believe outright,
unless it is corroborated by other sources.
Biblical corruption is not confined to minor and peripheral issues, it has
indeed affected the basic doctrines of Christianity also. It is incorrect to
say that the corruption of biblical text left the bible unaffected, insofar
as its doctrinal content is concerned.
Christian theology and Bible
Now we come to the doctrines of Christianity based on this unreliable
document. Obviously, no theology, worthy of ensuring human salvation, can be
built on a text that was mercilessly, callously and, on many occasions,
intentionally tampered with. Such an attempt, to construct a coherent and
reliable theology on biblical foundation, is bound to remain unfruitful and
meaningless. It is likely to precipitate mind boggling mysteries rather than
sound rational doctrines. This is exactly what we expect to find in
Christian dogma.
Although there is a sharp disagreement among the Christians as to what is
the bare minimum in terms of the doctrines that one must up hold, if he is
to be considered a Christian, yet I would attempt to discuss the most
commonly professed Christian beliefs.
How should a scripture support its central themes?
Before attempting to discuss Christian doctrines with reference to Bible, we
have to first decide as to in what forms should the fundamental doctrines be
found in a scripture. For example, the fundamental beliefs in Islam are
Belief in one God, Belief in Messengers of God, and Belief in the Day of
Judgment. Now if one takes up a copy of the Holy Qur'an, he will find them
mentioned on almost every page or on every other page. There has never been
any debate whether Qur'an preaches Monotheism or not - whether it reminds us
of the day of judgment or not! An ordinary Muslim conveniently proclaims his
beliefs using only the words of the Holy Qur'an. The Muslim beliefs are
explicitly and categorically stated, more than once, in their Scripture. So,
like any other faith, the Christian doctrines should be perfectly rooted in
the scripture and should rise from the scripture naturally even to a neutral
reader. It should not require the hairsplitting efforts of thousands of
brilliant scholars working for two thousand years to show that at best a few
allusions to their beliefs are indeed found in Bible! But unfortunately,
exactly this picture emerges when we study the Bible and the history of
development of Christian theology. Most of the fundamental doctrines of
Christianity are not found in the Bible as they are professed by the
Christians.
Secondly, if at all allusions to these doctrines are traced in the Bible, we
must see whether they are in red letters or not; whether such fundamental
doctrines are presented as central themes or found only in foot notes to the
book or in distant digressions from the main theme. Unfortunately, the
fundamental Christian doctrines are not found as central themes in the
Bible. Therefore when Christian scholars tried to articulate their beliefs,
they did not select passages from the Bible, they tried to do that through
Creeds and Councils, and even that happened centuries after Christ. These
articulations were not based on the Bible, they were based on extra-biblical
terminology and phrases coined by their scholars.
Now we turn to the most important Christian doctrines.
Original Sin
The doctrine of Original Sin, the way it is professed by the Christian
community, is nowhere stated in the Bible. You may be surprised, but the
fact is that the phrase 'Original Sin' is as alien to Bible as Pentium-III
is alien to Shakespeare. On the other hand, Bible contains verses that
refute the concept of original sin. For example see Ezekiel 18, which
asserts:
The soul who sins is the one who will die. . . But suppose this son has a
son who sees all the sins his father commits, and though he sees them, he
does not do such things. . . He will not die for his father's sin; he will
surely live. But his father will die for his own sin, because he practiced
extortion, robbed his brother and did what was wrong among his people.
Yet you ask, 'Why does the son not share the guilt of his father?' Since the
son has done what is just and right and has been careful to keep all my
decrees, he will surely live. The soul who sins is the one who will die. The
son will not share the guilt of the father, nor the father, nor will the
father share the guilt of the son. The righteousness of the righteous man
will be credited to him, and the wickedness of the wicked will be charged
against him. (Ezekiel 18:4-20)
Holy Trinity
In case of trinity, the Bible does not contain any statement saying:
'God the father is God. Jesus Christ the son is God and the Holy Spirit is
God. And that they are three persons of God but put together, these three
persons are not three Gods but only One.'
On the other hand, monotheism, as professed by the Jews and Muslims, occurs
in the Bible on numerous occasions.
He asked him, 'Of all the commandments, which is the most important?'
'The most important one,' answered Jesus, 'is this: Hear, O Israel, the Lord
our God, the Lord is one.' (Mark 12:28-29)
Christ as Unique Son of God
The Christians hold that Jesus is the unique son of God. No doubt Jesus is
termed in the Bible as Son of Adam and as Son of God also. But the Christian
scholars have been reading more than what this expression actually says. All
righteous people are sons of God according to the Bible. In Psalms 2:7 God
tells David: You are my son; today I have begotten you. Do our Christian
friends build the same theological system around David also? No, because
they know what the word means. It only signifies divine love and blessings
on the righteous. And indeed Jesus Christ was a righteous person. That is
all this expression means.
Crucifixion, Resurrection and Atonement
On Crucifixion and Resurrection of Jesus Christ, the NT is quite expressive.
These events have been graphically described in the Gospels. However, it is
a tampered document that holds this substance. And, the testimony of each
Gospel differs with the other on a number of details.
That redemption and salvation through Christ is the basic contention and
other doctrines tend to support this.
But it may be understood clearly, that to a Christian, it is not crucifixion
or resurrection or divinity of Christ that matters in its own right. These
doctrines are preludes to the doctrine of Atonement. To the Christians,
Jesus Christ was crucified as the Son of God, and made to suffer, and
resurrected, so that he may Redeem us and Atone for our sin - the sin that
had afflicted Adam and had deprived us of the ability to be good.
Patristic Fathers like Saint Augustine were sensitive on other doctrines in
the face of mounting dissenting views, because they thought that it would
make Redemption impossible. For instance while condemning Arianism,
Athanasius argued that if Jesus was not fully God, Redemption would become
impossible because a creature cannot redeem other creatures. In his book
'Against the Arians' his argument runs either like this: