Sweeping up after the Poythress articles

by Dan Phillips

Assuming the argument* of the three Poythress articles (starting here), let's look at two questions.

First: if they aren't spiritual gifts,
what are they?

There is no Scriptural authority for calling these activities "spiritual gifts," in the 1 Corinthians 12 sense. Anyone with a robust Biblical grasp of the sufficiency of Scripture should find that fact sobering, even pivotal.

But if you can't call these hunches, strong impressions, vivid dreams and all "spiritual gifts," then what do you call them?

I have a bold proposal: what if we call them hunches, strong impressions, vivid dreams?


The chattery negative reaction many would fling back in response is very telling. You'll note I've never argued that hunches, strong impressions, and vivid dreams are without any significance. I just argue that they have no divine authority, and often signify nothing of any import.

And there's the rub, for all sorts of Christianoids. To them, all this Bibley stuff is too cerebral and "out-there." They crave the vivid immediacy of feelings and experiences. More than that, they insist on attaching some sort of spiritual significance or divine authority to their vibrations and emanations. More than that, they like being able to imagine that they have an individual hotline to God, through which He whispers sweet nothings into their ears, and theirs alone.

And it's a nice plus not to have to make an actual rational, Biblical case for their opinions.  "The Lord told me" or "I felt the Lord move my heart to" or "I was praying, and I just really felt led" trumps anything short of a specific Biblical prohibition... and sometimes, even that.

But if we (novel thought!) begin insisting that everything we do in God's name be done only with express Biblical warrant, all that must change. Everyone will be absolutely free to say, "I just feel," or "I have a hunch" — but our feelings and hunches will have to stand or fall by their own merits. We'll have to make a reasoned case, or confess our inability to do so. If we have earned a reputation as Biblically-savvy, mature souls with sound judgment, they'll have some weight. If we're silly, shallow, emotional tumbleweeds, well, not so much.

As I said, if some sharp cookie like my wife or many of my friends says they have an uneasy feeling about something, I take it seriously. I consider it very possible that a dozen alarm-bells are going off at a subliminal level in their sharp, perceptive, Biblically-informed minds. I see the moving of their thoughts as being under the providential control of God (cf. Proverbs 21:1), and I'll factor it in to any decision-making.

But unless it's attached to some Bible verses, I'll not assign any Divine authority to it.

Second: what do we do about them?

My three thoughts will be fairly blunt and direct. (Readers gasp in astonishment.)

One: we need to bring our language under Biblical discipline. Don't call what isn't prophecy "prophecy." Don't say "the Lord told me" if you're not about to quote a Bible verse. Don't try to legitimatize silliness by forcing a Biblical label on it. Let a prophecy be the unique, enormous, stop-the-presses thing it was, and let a hunch be a hunch.

However, if you are a really-really "continuationist," then stop pussy-footing about. Get on with it, man! Have Crossway issue an ESV with lots and lots of blank pages in the end, so you can "continue" to ink in new Scripture. Just be sure to tell everyone that that's where you're coming from.

Two: we need to grow up. Repent of the paralyzing, navel-gazing, self-absorbed fascination with the murky world of sorta semi-gifts that impart sorta semi-revelation. Get into real revelation; get into Scripture.

You can take this to the bank: I have yet to meet the fake-gift-obsessed charismatic who is what he is because he learned and internalized all of Scripture, and just really needed something else to do.

We've got 66 books of pure, real, binding revelation. We don't know them like we should. We don't preach them like we should. We don't live them like we should.

So grow up, focus, and get with God's program.

Three: anyone claiming to speak for God apart from Scripture should be disciplined. The Bible is pretty fierce on the subject of speaking in God's name without authority, without authorization (Deuteronomy 18:20). Here's my reasoning: if in Israel false prophecy warranted the death penalty, should it not warrant excommunication in the Christian church?


We're going to have to cook, or get out of the kitchen. If we believe the Canon is closed and Scripture is sufficient, then we believe God is not speaking new words apart from Scripture. Anyone claiming to mediate such revelation is in serious error. If we won't get serious about that, we're not serious about Scripture's sufficiency.

There.

Happy? Great. Mad? Oh well. Sorry.

But you won't walk off saying "Hunh, wonder what Phillips really thinks."

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*That means, once again, the meta will assume that position, rather than debate it.

Part One

Part Two

Part Three

UPDATE: Trogdor made a trenchant observation pairing two Justin Taylor posts, and probably making my point more briefly and effectively than I did. In fact, it may give me an idea for a Next!

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Vern Poythress and the modern sorta-gifts (Part Three)

by Dan Phillips

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This is the conclusion of a three-part post, which starts here, continues here, and concludes... well, here. I'm mulling an afterword, but this is the main argument.

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So how does Poythress get from Scriptural sufficiency to (what I argue is) Scriptural insufficiency? The way most good men and women go off-course: by inches. Something like this (again, I urge you to read Poythress):

1. Biblically-described gifts/activities may be thought of as discursive and non-discursive
2. Prophecy, with its visions and heard-voices, is an example of a non-discursive activity
3. Modern "prophecy," with its feelings and leadings, is also non-discursive
4. Modern "prophecy" is therefore analogous to Biblically-described prophecy
5. It is a kind of the same activity, must be treated as a spiritual gift, and may bear the same name

But where is the direct Biblical warrant for basing anything significant on that inferred division? Do not Biblical prophecies include quotations from previous texts? (Hint: they do.) Where is the direct Biblical warrant for extracting the essential identifying characteristics of a gift, and dignifying the resultant activity with the name God gave the genuine gift? It is as if one were to discard the weiner and still insist that what was left was a "hot dog."

Where is the crying need to invent errant gifts? Remember, in the apostolic church, inerrant gifts were already joined by fallible gifts. It isn't as if all the gifts back then involved prophetic inerrancy and apostolic authority, and now we have to explain how we can do anything in our day, because Scripture doesn't countenance it.

To be specific, the Bible already names pastors and teachers, exhorters, helpers and leaders, without any suggestion that their activities were inerrant products of binding, divine revelation. What is the argument demanding the insufficiency of the revealed lists? Are we really incapable of either describing what Christians legitimately do by using revealed categories? Why do we need to invent new gifts, new versions of the gifts that did involve binding, inerrant divine revelation? Where is the direct Biblical warrant for such proliferation of gifts?

And if there is no direct Biblical warrant, where is the necessity?

This progression makes for a cautionary lesson. Let me illustrate:

Gradualistic reasoning. One of my finest memories is of the day my dear (then-future) wife and I shopped for wedding rings together. We were in the Redondo Beach area, going through the jewelry stores. Later there was dinner overlooking the ocean, and a sweet nice time by the crashing waves. Terrific day, terrific evening.

I'd never thought ring-shopping could be fun, but this really was. We were pretty money-poor, so we began by looking at plain gold bands, which cost $X. But those $X rings were in a case right next to other rings. It was impossible not to see them. Looking from the bands to the other rings we saw that, for just $X+10 more per ring, we could have this attractive design on them. Cool! But, wait, just another $X+15, and we could have this beautiful touch... and then, at $X+25, this... and then at $X+75, this.... Before long, we were financially miles and miles away from our starting-point.

Finally my intended said, "You know, would we rather spend all our money on nice rings now and have nothing for our honeymoon? Or get basic rings now, have a nice honeymoon, and then upgrade in ten years? After all, the rings won't make the marriage."

The problem with inching away from Scripture. Poythress' article is an example of just that kind of creeping gradualistic thinking. Poythress thinks that, if we're going to buy the $X+1 ring, we might as well go ahead and get the $X+1000 ring.

In effect, Poythress starts out with A: the apostolic gifts were revelatory, inerrant, binding; the Canon is closed and sufficient; such gifts are no longer in operation. Then he says, "From that explicit teaching of Scripture, it is only a short step to inference A, which is not explicitly Scriptural, but which sees that one might argue that there are different mutations of the same gift, starting off at near-identity, but soon ranging far afield. Once we grant A, it will become easier to step to A+1, then A+25 and A+95, further and further away from explicit Biblical teaching; at which point just another few leaps, and we end up here, at A=Ω. This all leads us to see that it's okay to call non-A 'A,' and obligatory to respect it equally with A."

Nice trick. Color me unconvinced.

Arguing that an inuitive hunch verbalized by a good Christian brother or sister is analogous to inerrant, binding, direct revelation from God to the extent that the latter may bear the name of the former, simply does not follow. A Frisbee may bear similarities to a pizza, but please don't try to serve it to me for dinner, with or without anchovies.

So in sum, I am tempted to refute Poythress' entire argument simply by saying "Yes, well, I don't think contemporary gifts are significantly analogous to apostolic gifts," and leave it at that.

Though Poythress' article is over 15,000 words long, this would actually be an adequate refutation, if not a very satisfying one.

How so? Read Poythress, and you will see that his entire case breaks down thus:

1. Scripture defines certain revelatory gifts.
2. I, Vern Poythress, think some modern activities are kind of like those gifts, though not the same.
3. "Kind of like" is close enough that we can call them by the same names, and are obliged to regard them as spiritual gifts.

See? So if one can say (as I do say) "I don't think it's valid to take that step; instead, I think we should let Scripture name what it names, and be both content with that and bound by that naming," then he's done.

Think of it in any other sphere. A flashlight is like a sun, no? Both give light in dark places. There you go. So, let's call a flashlight a "sun."

But no, we can't do that. A sun has defining features which set it apart from flashlights. There is a reason why we have two words, and don't trade them back and forth willy-nilly.

As I see it, this is just another good brother's goodhearted but mistaken attempt to "Clinton down" the real gifts, to spray-paint a false veneer of respectability to modern counterfeits so as to save them from embarrassment.

At some point, I think sober heads are going to have to wake up and ask themselves why they keep trying to do this, why they keep making excuses for goofy ol' Uncle Joe. Is it because we like the faux-gift practitioners? Well, I like them too, a lot. But is that a good motivation for playing loose with Scripture, bending it to accommodate our friends' errors? Does such a thing serve God well? Does it adorn the Scripture? For that matter, does it serve the uninstructed, the gullible... or the ensnared?

I think not.

Conclusion: case closed!

Now let's see who's been paying attention.

At this point you, Dear Readers, will divide generally into two main categories.

First category will be those persuaded by my argument, and unconvinced by Dr. Poythress. To many folks in that group, I will have at least sketched the outline of a withering, devastating critique of Poythress' position, and you basically agree with me. Case closed.

Second category would be comprised of those who still feel that Dr. Poythress is right. Perhaps you'd argue, as many do, that the Bible does not claim to give an exhaustive list of spiritual gifts. You see analogies between modern, more-intuitive phenomena (if orthodox) and Biblical apostolic, revelatory, inspired, binding gifts. You think it's valid, for that reason, to apply the same names to the modern activities.

Well then, my argument still must prevail.

How so?

You do not feel I have mounted a withering, devastating critique of Poythress' position. I understand that.

But does not my case contain many of the characteristics of a withering, devastating critique? Wouldn't honesty force you to admit that my argument is... hm, what's the word?... analogous to a withering, devastating critique of Poythress' position?

Surely.

Well then, if you think Poythress is right, then I demand that you apply his reasoning and call my argument a withering, devastating critique of Poythress' position. And I demand that it be worked into any theology of the gifts.

If he's right... then I'm right. Or analogous to being right. Which, since Dr. Poythress does not want to "get bogged down in disputes about terminology," amounts to the same thing.

There y'go.

Case closed.

Part One
Part Two

Afterword

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Vern Poythress and the modern sorta-gifts (Part Two)

by Dan Phillips

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SORRY. Really, I am. I was afraid this would happen, which is why I built in some wiggle-words to Part One ("unless...should be...."). This post is too long, so I'm breaking it into two. Comments still closed, for the same reasons I explained previously, until the conclusion — which is already pretty much written, so don't fear. Much.

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In the first word, O Pyrophilus, we set out a sketchy view of the view of sorta-cessationist Vern Poythress, who tries very hard to achieve real respectability for the sorta-gifts that mesmerize not-really "continuationists" today and set them off from plain-ol' really-Sola-Scriptura Christians. I briefly summarized Poythress' position, and urged you to read Poythress.

Many folks, including the estimable Justin Taylor, are quite smitten with Poythress' argument. As you have surmised, I am not among that number. This puts me in an uncomfortable  position, because while I doubt I'm alone in my view, I have not found anyone else on whose shoulders I can stand (or behind whom I can hide). Neither Googling the intrawebs nor Logos-ing scores of academic journals turned up critical responses. Dissents to Poythress, if they exist, eluded me. This is disappointing, since (A) Poythress' argument has been influential enough to warrant a sound takedown, and (B) far better men than I could surely disassemble it like a Lego toy with unchanged pulse rate.

So I'm stuck giving my own evaluation, which, recalling the adage about pioneers, is a daunting prospect.

Too bad, too, because I think Poythress' article is easily deconstructed. Everything depends on two factors:

1. How desperate the reader is to invent a way to achieve respectability for "continuationism"/Charismaticism.
2. Whether the reader is willing to make a specific leap with Poythress.

The second depends on the first. Without that urge, there is no motivation to take the leap.

The leap is everything. There is a point early-on in the jaw-dropper movie The Sixth Sense (NOTE: I will delete spoilers, period), where everything depends on the viewer making a particular assumption. Make that assumption — which I did — and what follows becomes an amazing experience. Otherwise, it simply does not work.

Poythress' assumption is that we are warranted in calling things what they aren't. (In fact, he actually tries to argue that we are obliged to do so.) More specifically, Poythress assumes we have the right to (A) take revealed gift-name labels, (B) affix those labels to non-identical activities, then (C) demand that those non-identical activities [1] be accepted as legitimate, under the revealed gift-names, and [2] be worked into actual theologies. I could make a syllogism:

• A has something like (analogous to) characteristic 14
• ξ has something like (analogous to)  characteristic 14
• Therefore, ξ can be called "A"

It is as if I were to take a Maine Coon cat, argue that it is analogous to a dog, then demand that Maine Coons be included in textbooks on dogs as kinds of dogs. To do that, I could make a much better case than Poythress does. After all, cats and dogs both walk on four legs, have tails, have sharp teeth, are usually covered with fur, are mammals, have sensitive noses, and are founds in hundreds of thousands of homes. So there y'go: cats are analogous to dogs, therefore cats are (in a Poythressian sense) dogs. People who argue that cats and dogs are different really "need to cool down," as Poythress scolds us.


Prophecy, for instance, is one thing only in the Bible: it is morally-binding direct revelation, inerrant in both bestowal and communication (Exodus 4:15-16; 7:1-2). Preaching, teaching, other forms of communication are in no way prophecy, unless they are instances of the reception and communication of inerrant, direct, morally-binding revelation.

Now, it is legitimate to try to argue (A) that modern "prophecy" is legitimate because it is the same as NT prophecy, since NT prophecy actually was weak, erring, trivial and pathetic — as modern "prophecy" is. Or it is legitimate to argue (B) that modern "prophecy" is nothing like NT prophecy, because it is not the reception and communication of inerrant, direct, morally-binding revelation. Wayne Grudem and others desperately try (and fail) to make the former argument; others (your humble correspondent among them), the latter.

But what is not legitimate is to say yes, the modern activity lacks the defining characteristic of the Biblical activity, but we can just go ahead and call it the same thing because it is analogous to the Biblical activity.

Yet Poythress does insist in calling modern imitations "spiritual gifts." What is his direct authority? He argues that they're "gifts" because all knowledge is a gift. He insists that they are nonauthoritative — yet Poythress grants legitimacy to giving them name of gifts that are definitionally authoritative.

I think this is illegitimate. We cannot apply the same name without applying the same authority. The name "prophecy" is an authority-name. It is as if we were to begin calling deaconesses "pastors" because they are in some ways analogous to pastors, while trying to argue that we do not thereby mean to attribute any authority to the office. The title is a designation of authority within a church, and one cannot grant the title without granting the authority.

Poythress tries to say "piffle" to all this fuss (as he seems to see it) about labels, naming Gaffin and Grudem as proponents of competing positions. No need to quibble, just do the Poythress-thing and get along.

Poythress insists most emphatically on the sufficiency of Scripture, and argues that his position is no challenge to that truth. "Not so fast," say I. If these are spiritual gifts, then are they the ones described in Scripture, or are they not? If they are not, if Scripture does not describe them as gifts, yet if we must accept them as spiritual gifts, and must (as Poythress insists) "take the additional step of integrating the modern phenomena into a theology of spiritual gifts," then it is clear that Scripture is not actually sufficient, since God left this crucial bit of information out. Shouldn't a "theology" be restricted to what Scripture actually teaches, if Scripture is in fact sufficient? Yet if I must do as Poythress argues, is that not premised on the de facto insufficiency of Scripture?

Put another way: Poythress argues on the basis of 1 Corinthians 12 that non-charismatics must accept charismatics' pale imitations of the Biblical gifts. Yet this begs two questions:

First, can we just make up a gift, or its meaning?

Second, if these activies are not the gifts described in 1 Corinthians 12, then how does that passage compel the mislabeling of activities it does not affirm?

If what charismatics call "prophecy" is in fact prophecy, then it must be inerrant and binding, as Poythress affirms. However, if the activity is not in fact what the Bible calls prophecy — and it is not — then is it not critical that they stop calling it such?

If these are what Scripture describes, all agree that we must accept them.

But if they are not, does it not best serve God and man for us plainly to say "Knock it off, grow up, and get back to focusing on what God does say to do in His sufficient Word"?

(To be concluded)

Part One
Part Three

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Vern Poythress and the modern sorta-gifts (Part One)

by Dan Phillips

Preface:  Justin Taylor titled an article The Best Essay Ever Written on Spiritual Gifts Today. Eye-catching, eh? Rare, too, to see Justin so giddy; so of course I looked closer.

Have to admit I was a bit disappointed to find that the title referred to a fourteen-year-old article by Vern Poythress, published in the Journal of the Evangelical Theological Society in 1996 (and now happily available online). I say I was "disappointed," because I was aware of Poythress' argument and (frankly) had thought it very low on merit.

But I like Justin, think very well of him, and decided that if he found it so epochal, I should give it another, closer look.

So let's do.

I'll do this in two parts... unless I end up doing it in three. The first part will summarize Poythress' argument, and the second will evaluate it. My summary will be inadequate; I encourage you to wade through his entire article.

Comments will be closed on part one, because (A) I don't see any way comments won't jump the gun on the second half; and (B) this topic always attracts USers (Unreflecting Spewers). This is my way to make them marinate, at least a little, at least briefly. Think of it as a ministry. Comments should be opened up on the second post.

Poythress' position. Poythress says, in the opening Abstract (bolding added):

The Book of Revelation is inspired. Modern visions, auditions, and “prophecies” are not inspired, because the canon of the Bible is complete. However, these modern visions and auditions may be analogous to the Book of Revelation, just as modern preaching is analogous to apostolic preaching. Like modern preaching, modern intuitive speech has authority only insofar as it bases itself on the final infallible divine authority of Scripture.

A key distinction here is the distinction between rationally explicit processes, such as those involved when Luke wrote his Gospel, and intuitive processes, such as those involved with the Book of Revelation. One type of process is not inherently more “spiritual” than the other. Both the Gospel of Luke and Revelation were inspired.

Modern preaching is analogous to Luke: in composing a sermon rationally explicit processes dominate. Modern “prophecy” or intuitive speech is analogous to Revelation. Intuitive processes dominate. The general analogy between apostolic gifts and lesser gifts of the present day suggests that rationally explicit processes and intuitive processes can both be used by the Spirit today.

Cessationists argue that New Testament prophecy was inspired and has therefore ceased with the completion of the canon. But there are still noninspired intuitive gifts analogous to prophecy. Therefore, in order not to despise the gifts of the Spirit, cessationists must allow for a place for intuitive gifts in their ecclesiology.

The fact that we have analogy rather than identity means that we must respect certain restraints. Modern intuitive phenomena must be subject to the same restraints that are placed on preaching. Everything must be checked for conformity to Scripture.

I maintain that modern charismatic gifts are analogous to inspired apostolic gifts. Hence it may or may not be appropriate to call them by the same terms as those used in the NT. Rather than get bogged down in disputes about terminology, I move directly to a consideration of what the modern gifts actually do.....

What Poythress does. I urge you to read Poythress' article. If in my summary I don't reproduce every tiny step, Poythress' devotees will dismiss my argument as oversimplifying and un-nuanced. However, if I do interact with every step, thousands of sets of eyes will glaze over. And well they should: Pyromaniacs is not an academic journal. But if that happens, my Mission will be Unaccomplished.

So I give a very sketchy summary.

Poythress divides all Biblical spiritual gifts into those that operate with God's own authority (i.e. apostolic and Messianic gifts), and those that are under authority (i.e. pastors and teachers, etc.). Poythress says that the revelatory, fully-binding gifts ceased to function as such with the completion and dissemination of Scripture, while other non-revlatory gifts continue their function as-is... or as-was. In this way, Poythress distinguishes "gifts with full divine authority and subordinate (uninspired) gifts" (Journal of the Evangelical Theological Society Volume 39, 1, 74).

Then Poythress invents a division between "discursive" and "non-discursive" gifts. The former are those in which the gifted person bases what he does on Scripture — as a pastor preparing a Biblical sermon, or a counselor using Scripture to help or warn someone. The "non-discursive" are more intuitive processes, arising directly rather than as a result of analysis or reflection. Prophecy was an example (I'd cite 2 Peter 1:21 to make Poythress' point, though he doesn't), particularly seeing visions and hearing voices.

Then Poythress notes that certain modern activities are (to him) like those revelatory activities. They are reminiscent of them, they are (he argues) in the same general category as they, though without the inerrantly-revelatory and morally-binding nature of those prophetic/apostolic gifts.

Again and again, Poythress insists on the sufficiency of Scripture, and the non-continuation of the apostolic gifts. But he wants to grant status to hunches, intuitions and notions as being — not merely hunches, intuitions and notions, but — spiritual gifts analogous to the Biblical gifts of prophecy and words of knowledge and wisdom. They may be situational applications of Scripture, prompted by the Spirit but errant and non-binding except insofar as they echo Scripture itself.

Poythress tells cessationists that "some noncharismatics need to learn to value nondiscursive gifts. Instead, they have subtly [seemed?] to say, 'I don’t need you.' Their basis, supposedly, is that nondiscursive gifts ceased with the completion of the canon of Scripture. What they have actually shown is merely that inspired nondiscursive gifts ceased with the completion of the canon."

So, they're the same gifts (prophecy, words of wisdom and knowledge), but not inspired? Poythress mentions the controversy between those (like Richard Gaffin) who think NT prophecy was inerrant, and those (like Wayne Grudem) who think it was not — but he shrugs it off as inconsequential.

Suppose Gaffin is right. Then “prophecy” ceased with the completion of the apostolic era and the completion of the canon of Scripture. Modern phenomena are fallible and hence are not identical with New Testament prophecy. But modern nondiscursive processes with teaching content is analogous to prophecy, just as modern preaching is analogous to apostolic preaching. Hence the general principles concerning spiritual gifts, as articulated in 1 Cor 12-14 and elsewhere, are still applicable. What charismatics call “prophecy” is not really the “prophecy” mentioned in the New Testament. Rather, it is a fallible analogue. It is really a spiritual gift for speaking fallibly through nondiscursive processes.

But is this different modern activity "prophecy," still? Poythress doesn't seem to care. He says both agree that it is fallible; Gaffin "needs only to take the additional step of integrating the modern phenomena into a theology of spiritual gifts." Remember, Poythress had earlier said that "it may or may not be appropriate to call them by the same terms as those used in the NT," but we should not "get bogged down in disputes about terminology."

Poythress closes with a bunch of stories which, if that's how you do exegesis, well, there y'go.

In sum: modern activities that Charismatics call "prophecy" and such are not the same as the inspired NT gifts, but they are analogous, are gifts, are manifestations of the Spirit (albeit flawed and errant), could be given the same names, and should be "integrat[ed]... into a theology of spiritual gifts."

Thus far Poythress.

Next time, Lord willing, my thoughts.

In the meanwhile: if you'd like to beef up on your Biblical thinking regarding this area, read posts tagged Charismaticism, da Gifts, and sola Scriptura.

Part Two
Part Three

Afterword

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