The Shaving of The Razor

By Vinnie MacIsaac

William of Ockham is most famous for what is commonly called “Ockham’s Razor.” When we say Ockham’s Razor, we mostly mean his principle of simplicity. In fact, the very name of my Blog, “Simply Vinnie,” with the tagline, “Unpacking the complicated,” is an homage and tribute to the brilliance of Ockham and his Razor. However, sadly, we have tended to substantially over simplify Ockham to the point of watered-down, tasteless, skim-milk that fits the acronym K.I.S.S. (Keep it Simple Stupid). The tragedy is Ockham is so much more than “keeping it simple!”

We have shaved the Razor itself! The mere fact that we must unpack the complicated to make it simple is not to say truth is simple! But instead, it can be complicated and needs a razor to loosen it from the unnecessary realm of complications to be best understood, in more general terms, before we enrich it with more complexity. However, when we are simple, at the expense of real understanding, we are doing what I call ‘shaving the razor;’ that is, simplifying to the point of meaninglessness and functional uselessness. I call this, tasteless skim-milk theology. It may be low in calories, but it is also useless in fatty meaning. We want to use Ockham’s Razor to find meaning not to shave all meaning away by the crude oversimplification for the sake of the shave.

To stop shaving the Razor, we must first understand who Ockham was. Ockham was an English Franciscan friar (1287 – 1347) who was chosen, from a young age, to enter scholastic theology by his order. That is right, Ockham was first and foremost a medieval theologian who took a strict vow of poverty and took all matters of faith so seriously that he’d rather be summoned by the Pope to defend his positions in Papal court and risk being labeled a heretic than to compromise his convictions. Unless we understand that faithfulness to theological conviction as the core of Ockham, we, in fact, will misunderstand who he was and what is the right use of his Razor.

Ockham’s problem was that scholastic theology, in the medieval era, was so heavy-laden with Greek Metaphysics that the church could not understand its most basic theological tenants unless it could see them through a pagan Greek theological lens. Aristotelian Greek logic, adopted and developed via the minds of Thomas Aquinas and Duns Scotus, before Ockham, had become the backbone of medieval scholastic theology. Philosophical Realism[i] had become Aristotelian logic on steroids and far advanced beyond anything Aristotle, Aquinas, or Scotus had envisioned. It was this metaphysical dogma Ockham developed his razor to slice through and get back to the Bible (centuries before Luther would ever show up).

To quote Doctor Ryan M. Reeves[ii] what Ockham was saying is “Christian theology is not Aristotelian Philosophy [or one of its many branches], that we just simply build our doctrines on top of. It can’t be that Christian theology is simply the best version of Pagan Philosophy.” And it is here that we can, now, understand that the meaning of Ockham is not just to make things simple for the sake of simply being “right” or most correct. Ockham used his Razor to free Christian doctrine from the mass complexities of Aristotelian logic gone to excess![iii] So, when we talk about his Razor, it is really unfounded to use that Razor to cut away anything complex and reduce things to a simplistic caricature of their full selves. Ockham was using his Razor to free the fullness of thought, not nullify it to nothingness, for the sake of mass appeal. Oversimplification is not at all what Ockham is doing.  Most of us reading Ockham would very quickly find his complexity is a level of difficulty, in its own right! What Ockham is seeking to do is cut away Aristotelian Philosophy from Christian dogma to end up at Biblical theology; which of course, will put him at odds, eventually, with the Pope of his time.

For the sake of example, let’s look at a couple of Ockham cuts so we can see how he worked. That said, don’t overthink them or get lost in these two examples because Metaphysics can do that to the best of us![iv] I have tried, in the spirit of Ockham, not to over or under complicate these examples:

Example one:

Philosophical Realism includes the idea of “Universals.” Universals are “properties that can be applied to many things;” that is to say, a tree, or a car, or a phone, exist independently of their being in the physical world, “they have existed somehow prior to the physical world,”[v] and thus that is why they are real, they are eternal so they can be physical. We know this because there are more than one tree, car, and phone, so therefore they are more than what they are in front of us. [vi] Ockham cuts this down by saying; instead, properties are not eternal forms but rather named concepts, and outside of the physical world, “a tree, or a car, or a phone,” only exist as a term (name) for a concept that exists only in our minds. Yes, there is more than one tree, but tree is only a term, or name, your mind is using to understand the concept “tree,” not some abstract eternal universal form of “phone-ness” and “car-ness” that we identify physical form with.[vii] He, in essence, is not chopping metaphysics, as much as he is pruning it down to the core and thus saying, “Hey guys, get a grip! You are way over-thinking this stuff; sometimes a tree is just a tree!”

Example two:

Aristotle discusses ten categories of investigation[viii] as his primary way of classifying the world around us. For Aristotle, the categories are an investigative rubric, of sorts, for processing thinking about the world.

What the ten categories are is not all that important to my discussion here. However, for the sake of clarity they are; substance, quantity, quality, relationality, somewhere, sometime, being in a position, having, acting, and, being acted upon.[ix]

By the time of academic thinking in the age of Ockham, Aristotle’s categories had become more of entities[x] in and of themselves, rather than a classification rubric for problem-solving or investigation of the world. In short, they were as Doctor Ryan M. Reeves put it, additional proofs “added in” to make the game of metaphysics work. This, of course, was problematic for theology. Think about trying to make the Trinity fit into these ten entities of reality for it to be a real doctrine. What Ockham does is, again, point out our theology does not need all this metaphysics to work. He does this by basically saying, theologians are making up the necessity for all ten of these entities. He is saying, the inclusions of the categories are not real to the Trinity, and certainly not needed. Ockham skillfully uses his Razor and slices the ten down to only three categories. He greatly simplifies it by saying: there is Existence, Qualities, and sometimes Relationality. This is simply to say, things exist because they have substance, they having defining attributes or qualities about them, and sometimes may share a relation to other things with existence. Again, think of how much more straightforward this makes the Trinity. It exists in that God is real and has substance, it has definable attributes we know it by, and is has relationality, in that it is three in one (interrelation) and also relates to us (outsiders). Ockham would say we know this is valid because all three of these categories we see in the Bible about the Trinity.  So, Aristotle is not needed and only complicates the Trinity for the sake of doing Metaphysics.

All of this is to say, Ockham is not that simple after all. But what he is doing is cutting unnecessary metaphysics from medieval theology and doing so hundreds of years before Martin Luther. He is trying to return the church to the Bible as the prime source of scholastic theology, over Aristotle. So, when Ockham says, “When presented with competing hypotheses that make the same predictions, one should select the solution with the fewest assumptions”[xi] we need to understand, Ockham was actually talking about the reduction of metaphysics in theology. And he did not know how widely we would, one day, go slicing with his Razor. Mathematician, Philip Gibbs, correctly notes, “The Razor is often cited in stronger forms than Ockham intended.” Then Gibbs cites these frequent summaries of Ockham, as examples which were not at all Ockham’s intention:

 “If you have two theories that both explain the observed facts, then you should use the simplest until more evidence comes along.”

“The simplest explanation for some phenomenon is more likely to be accurate than more complicated explanations.”

“If you have two equally likely solutions to a problem, choose the simplest.”

“The explanation requiring the fewest assumptions is most likely to be correct.”

. . .or in the only form that takes its own advice. . .

“Keep things simple!”[xii]

Ockham was not trying to shift western thought into its most basic forms. He simply wanted to be a good Franciscan friar, have a sound and straightforward Theology, and live out a life of poverty, like Jesus did. And for that; he caught the ire of Pope John XXII in the Avignon Papacy.[xiii]  Rondo Keele, a Professor of Philosophy, in his book, “Ockham Explained: From Razor to Rebellion,”[xiv] makes a good case that Ockham may well be the first Protestant Reformer of sorts. For, without Ockham, Luther would not have had a humanistic background, to bring about the Reformation. Keele’s case is made pretty active when he points out, the whole last quarter of Ockham’s life is not spent in metaphysics at all, but in fighting the Pope and running for his life for daring to advocate the separation of church and state in medieval Europe.

Ockham, having just barely, successfully defended himself against a Papal accusation of heresy over his view of Metaphysics, didn’t even get out of town before he sided against the Pope in another major conflict that would lead to Ockham forever being banished to exile. The dispute is a little complex because the actual discussion took place steeped in Metaphysics. However, the key fight was over the vow of poverty that the Franciscan order took and its logical ramifications on the rest of the Church. The argument goes like this: Ockham is a Franciscan friar.  Franciscans take a vow of poverty. Because they take a vow of poverty, they can’t hold property or wealth.  If they did, Metaphysics would say they do not fit the form of poverty or, at least, not in the way Jesus did. However, Franciscans need food, shelter, and clothes. But if they own them, then they are not metaphysically poor. So, they have an arrangement with the Pope that the Pope, who already holds great wealth, would keep their wealth but give them access to any tangible needs the Order would have.

Ironically, the Pope figures out that the Order is indirectly implying he is corrupt, i.e., not like Jesus, (since he holds property). Moreover, the Pope sees they are suggesting they are holy, or more like Jesus because they don’t hold property. Worse yet, this all takes place during the era of the Avignon Papacy, when the Papacy is already under fire from the Kings for excesses in both wealth and secular power. The problem is the Pope can’t stop holding property because he is the Pope and the very head of the church on Earth. But he also can’t have the Franciscans implying those who own property are not like Jesus because that is the same as publicly accusing him as not being like Jesus. So, the Pope’s solution is not to embrace poverty but rather to force the Franciscans to embrace wealth and own their own property! While that will not make the Pope more like Jesus, it will stop the comparison and end the controversy.

Pope John XXII

What ensues next is a metaphysical fight between the Franciscans and Pope John XXII where “Realism” and the “Razor” battle the question if Franciscans can hold property, or not, is property wealthy, and what makes one have wealth! It is a bizarre and mind-bending argument that no one wins until Ockham and Michael of Cesena literally flee the Pope and run away and hide in the Holy Roman Empire, under the protection of some princes until they die. Ockham spends the rest of his life in exile, not expounding the metaphysics for which he is known best, but arguing against the corruption of the Papacy and the need of separation of Church and State, for which he has not been well recognized enough.  It is these ideas which Ockham develops on the separation of Church and State and the corruption of the Papacy, according to Reeves, that one day would influence an Augustinian Monk named Martin Luther.

I think it is correct, then, to say, when we boil Ockham down to just a simplicity formula, we miss everything! We must resist the temptation to “shave the razor” and over reduce our ideas for the purpose of mass appeal.  If we make Ockham the acronym K.I.S.S (Keep it simple stupid), it is we who are who are stupid, or at least grossly ignorant of both his brilliance and contributions. For me, and for my blog, the mandate for how to use Ockham in the theological sense, oddly enough, is best summed up by a line attributed to Albert Einstein’s take on it, “Everything should be made as simple as possible, but not simpler.”[xv] I am simply, Vinnie, and my blog seeks to unpack the complicated, not because complication is not real, but because It can be simplified for the sake of being accessible but never to the point being so simple, it is as unless as watered down, tasteless skim-milk. The “Truth” is rich and creamy but best poured out rather than locked up and aged into hard cheeses. The Razor, should not shave Ockham, it should shave whatever is of man’s philosophy and not of Christ.[xvi]

Let’s follow Ockham’s example and take Christian Theology back to the Bible and common sense, while at the same time refusing to “shave the razor,” and simplifying it to the point of being tasteless and useless. We unpack the truth, to bring understanding, we don’t cut the truth loose to bring a mass appeal or uncommitted seekers. We want to knock, seek, and find, but we want the theology that is worth the find!

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Footnotes:

[i] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bzqnIJ6qcFw

[ii] Ryan M. Reeves (Ph.D. Cambridge) is Assistant Professor of Historical Theology at Gordon-Conwell Theological Seminary. (see https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=B6y-3tiwO5Y)

[iii] It would also be fair to say that Ockham is not at all against Aristotelian Philosophy even, in fact, he is so brilliant at it he writes the literal textbook of his age for it. His problem with it is only that it is not needed for Christians to intelligently understand Christian doctrine. Ockham is a brilliant Aristotelian thinker. He just wants to keep theology, Christian and logic, Aristotelian.

[iv] It would be irony upon irony to overcomplicate Metaphysics in a blog about Ockham.

[v] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Philosophical_realism

[vi] This concept is called Nominal Metaphysics (Name or Term Metaphysics) also knowns as conceptualism and nominalism.

[vii] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XNz110GE-FM

[viii] https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/aristotle-categories/

[ix] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XxhwRjH5YUg

[x] Ryan M. Reeves (Ph.D. Cambridge) is Assistant Professor of Historical Theology at Gordon-Conwell Theological Seminary. (see https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=B6y-3tiwO5Y)

[xi] https://math.ucr.edu/home/baez/physics/General/occam.html

[xii] Phil Gibbs 1996. https://math.ucr.edu/home/baez/physics/General/occam.html

[xiii] The Avignon Papacy took place from 1309 to 1376, during which seven successive popes resided in Avignon, in south-east France instead of Rome. It is often called, “Babylonian Captivity of the Papacy” because after the death of Pope Benedict XI, who was attacked in his own Vatican, reportedly by agents of France, the newly elected French Pope Clement V refused to move to Rome as a show of support to the French King.  This was a time of great tension between the Catholic Church and various states (Nations) and the Papacy. In part, King Philippe of France and Louis IV, Holy Roman Emperor used argumentation that the Church lived in lavish wealth at the expense of the Nations. The larger question the period was really addressing was who really had the power over secular issues, the state (Kings) or the Church (Popes). This is important in our understanding of Ockham because in the latter period of his life the Holy Roman Emperor would protect him as he lobbed argumentation of separation of Church on the merits of excesses in the Church holding wealth.

[xiv] Rondo Keele, Ockham Explained: From Razor to Rebellion (Ideas Explained) Open Court; 1st edition (May 11, 2010) See https://www.amazon.com/Ockham-Explained-Razor-Rebellion-Ideas/dp/0812696506

[xv] https://quotationcelebration.wordpress.com/2017/01/07/everything-should-be-made-as-simple-as-possible-but-not-simpler-albert-einstein/

[xvi] A counter of Ockham is the Anti-Razor, which also has value. If the Razor cuts way metaphysics to two or three entities (Existence, Qualities, and sometimes Relationality) then the rule of the Anti-Razor first suggested by a contemporary of Ockham, Walter Chatton, states, “If three things are not enough to verify an affirmative proposition about things, a fourth must be added, and so on.” The point of the Razor and Anti-Razor are to cut enough but to keep enough, to bring clarity.

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Christianity’s Struggle

With Authority

By Guest Blogger Pastor Daniel Royo

Those who profess to follow God have a long track record of struggling with power. From the entrance of sin those who have some connection with God, either by profession or historical connection, have largely not had a clear idea of where spiritual authority comes from and how they should relate to it. This blog post highlights the history of the struggle, with a particular emphasis on developments of the last 2000 years. Despite our human tendencies, God proposes self-governance, not centralized power, as His preferred solution to sin-induced chaos.

Christian History

Protestant Christianity can be said to be simply a 500-year history of fights, splits, accusations, heretical teachings, and chaos. Despite countless attempts to bring some order to the chaos, the arguing continues. This battle, however, traces back to the beginnings of Christianity. Following Jesus’s ascension, the apostles warned that false teachers and false doctrines were lurking (Acts 20:29–31; 2 Cor 11:13–15; 1 Tim 4:1–3; 2 Pet 2:1; 1 John 2:26). One would think this would have been the preferred time to establish a creed or a doctrinal statement and designate those who be responsible for assuring adherence to the creed. Instead, the consistent message of the apostles was to study the revelation of the Jewish Scriptures (Acts 17:11; Rom 15:4; 1 Cor 10:6, 11; 2 Tim 3:15–17; 2 Pet 1:19–21). There were already false teachers in the lifetime of the New Testament writers who misused the writings of the apostles (2 Pet 3:15–16) but the centralization of power to confront the false teachers developed after the time of the apostles.

The early church faced a number of false teachings. Some of the more prominent were Gnosticism (secret knowledge was necessary for salvation), Montanism (Montanus was the Holy Spirit), Sabellianism (God is only one manifested three ways, not three), Arianism (Jesus was a created being), and Pelagianism (humanity can achieve heaven through our own power).[i] A bishop in Lyon, named Irenaeus (c.125–202 A.D.), in his efforts to counter Gnosticism, suggested that the solution to the false teachers could three-fold: (1) centralize power in the bishops as the successors of the apostles who received the oral tradition not recorded in Scripture, (2) codify church tradition in creeds, and (3) make church tradition and Scripture equal sources of authority.[ii] These ideas continued to develop and grow as the church continued to face persecution from without and false teachings from within.[iii]

The bishops called church councils to discuss the issues facing the church and to formulate creeds both to reflect their understanding of church tradition and to confront the false teachings. The central power of the church moved from the people, with multiple elders overseeing the churches, to the bishops who were deemed to be the successors of the apostles.[iv] This centralization continued to lead to greater prominence among certain bishops to the point that to this day there is an argument between the Eastern Orthodox who argue for a historical pentarchy and the Roman Catholic Church who argues for Roman primacy. The disagreement is not over whether or not there was centralization of religious authority, it is over who were the centralized authorities.

There were dark times in the Dark Age (Saeculum Obscurum A.D. 904–964) when corruption was rife in Rome and the only concern was power seeking and self-indulgence. This was followed by the schism in 1054 between east and west in which both the Eastern Patriarch and the Pope excommunicated each other. This apex of the corruption of those in power not only places a blot on the history of Christianity but also points to the dangers of centralizing power. The church had appointed to itself the authority to define doctrine for the people and then those in power did not even abide by the very teachings they imposed on the people.

The church had appointed to itself the authority to define doctrine for the people and then those in power did not even abide by the very teachings they imposed on the people.

The revolution brought about by the Protestant Reformation has at its center the issue of authority. One historian of the Protestant Reformation wrote,

The idea that lay at the heart of the sixteenth-century Reformation . . . was that the Bible is capable of being understood by all Christian believers—and that they all have the right to interpret it and to insist upon their perspectives being taken seriously. Yet this powerful affirmation of spiritual democracy ended up unleashing forces that threatened to destabilize the church, eventually leading to fissure and the formation of breakaway groups.[v]

He goes on to write, “Protestantism took its stand on the right of individuals to interpret the Bible for themselves rather than be forced to submit to ‘official’ interpretations handed down by popes or other centralized religious authorities.”[vi] The idea of the individual having the right to read and interpret the Bible for themselves apart from the teaching authority (Magisterium) of the church was a revolutionary idea at the time.

As one Roman Catholic theologian looks at the Protestant Reformation he agrees with the issue regarding authority, but he makes an insightful comment about the state of Protestant churches since the Reformation.

When the Protestant churches seceded from Rome, they seceded from the teaching office, and the Roman understanding of the teaching office was not adopted in the Protestant churches. The abandonment was not total; the Protestant churches wrote confessions of faith, they reached doctrinal decisions by synods of bishops or of ministers, and they enforced doctrinal conformity at times with a rigidity equal to the rigidity of Rome.[vii]

This is unfortunately true. Despite the ideal of the Protestant Reformation, the tendency even among Protestants is to follow in the same steps that have taken place time and again throughout history. Power is centralized to prevent chaos, confront threats, and root out dissent. The assumption is always that if power is centralized, then it helps the group to remain united, focused, and in a position to successfully confront the real or perceived threat.

This issue of centralized power is so deeply rooted in Western Christianity, one Reformed historical theologian wrote the following in a frequently-cited blog post of the book Is the Reformation Over?:

Every year I tell my Reformation history class that Roman Catholicism is, at least in the West, the default position. Rome has a better claim to historical continuity and institutional unity than any Protestant denomination, let alone the strange hybrid that is evangelicalism; in the light of these facts, therefore, we need good, solid reasons for not being Catholic; not being a Catholic should, in others words, be a positive act of will and commitment, something we need to get out of bed determined to do each and every day. It would seem, however, that if Noll and Nystrom are correct, many who call themselves evangelical really lack any good reason for such an act of will; and the obvious conclusion, therefore, should be that they do the decent thing and rejoin the Roman Catholic Church.[viii]

The tendency of human beings is to cede responsibility to someone else rather than to take personal responsibility. Protestant Christians are—in too many instances—following the same path of centralization of authority, and abdication of personal responsibility to read the Bible and connect directly with God, that has been the hallmark of human tendency throughout history. It is particularly those professed Protestants who object to Roman Catholicism that should be clear on not only disagreeing with some doctrinal issues but also examining the structural issues that are at the foundation of the tendency toward centralization and pick up their Bibles and read them. The democratic approach to the Bible that has been characterized as the dangerous idea at the heart of Protestantism does indeed have its risks—arguing, bickering, schisms—and there are significant numbers of Protestants who are taking the plunge and “crossing the Tiber”.[ix] Protestants should be clear on what makes them Protestants and live a life of personal Bible study and adherence to what the Bible says.

Biblical History

Decentralization of religious authority, however, has a long biblical history to build upon. The biblical record demonstrates God’s preference for decentralized religious authority. In the beginning, God gave clear instructions regarding obedience to His principles and at the same time gave freedom of choice to His creatures to submit or not. The instruction was to not eat of the tree, but the tree was prominently present in the midst of the garden (Gen 2:15–17; 3:2–3). (One would think since God was going to allow a choice, He could have used a Nudge [libertarian paternalism] strategy and made the option to do right much easier by putting the Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil in a more obscure, less-accessible place.) The first humans chose to disregard God’s instructions and eat the fruit. God’s response was to expel them from the garden and allow them to experience the consequences of their sin (Gen 3:16–24). The history of humanity has been the exact opposite approach to God’s, for when humans have engaged in self-destructive activity the human response has been to restrict their movement and make more rules to attempt to keep the “deviants” from deviating in the same way again.

God repeated a similar approach with ancient Israel as he had with Adam and Eve. God gave them the law at Sinai that was to govern them as they went into a Promised Land. The law, particularly the law in Deuteronomy, outlined God’s expectations of His people, and the circumstances under which they could remain in the land (Deut 30:11–20). God anticipated, however, that the people may not choose to continue in the theocratic structure He was setting up. He made provision for restrictions on a king if the people decided to imitate the nations around by setting up a monarchy (Deut 17:14–20).

Once the people entered the land, Joshua passed away and did not leave a successor (Jdg 2:7–10). The time period of the judges was characterized by a cycle of disobedience, chaos, and renewal at the hands of a judge whom God called (Jdg 2:11; 3:7; 3:12; 4:1; 6:1; 10:6; 13:1). The book of Judges further emphasizes this cycle, and the frustration it brought, by the phrase that appears twice, “In those days there was no king in Israel. Everyone did what was right in his own eyes” (Jdg 17:6; 21:25 ESV).

The last judge was Samuel. Samuel’s call from God involved telling his caretaker and mentor Eli that his sons were corrupt and would face God’s judgment (1 Sam 2:12–17; 3:10–18). Samuel did not learn the lesson, and his own sons turned out to be corrupt as well (1 Sam 8:1–3). The people responded to Samuel’s attempt to appoint his sons to succeed him by asking for a king (a centralized power) to bring some stability to the chaos (1 Sam 8:4–5). Samuel warned the people, on God’s behalf, that the king would centralize power, build a bureaucracy, incorporate conscription to staff a standing army, and raise taxes significantly to fund the centralized government (1 Sam 8:10–18). Despite Samuel’s warning, the people chose the monarchy (1 Sam 8:19–22). Once God chose the king, and he was coronated, the people began to regret their decision, but Samuel instructed them to follow God’s other commandments and it would go well for them (1 Sam 12:19–25).

Jesus came to establish a new kingdom based on new ideals that did not continue the earthly theocracy.

The monarchy was as best disappointing for Israel (and later the divided monarchy). The kings who at least tried in some significant way to follow God were: David (1 Kings 3:6), Asa (1 Kings 15:11), Jehoshaphat (2 Chron 17:3), Uzziah (2 Kings 15:32), Jotham (2 Chron 27:2), Hezekiah (2 Kings 20:3), and Josiah (2 Kings 23:19, 24).[x] As a result of Israel and Judah’s unfaithfulness, God eventually took them out of the land (2 Kings 17:6, 23; 2 Chron 36:15–21). Following the return from captivity, the Jews were under the control of the foreign empires of Persia, Greece, the Ptolomies, and the Seleucids. There was a brief autonomy under the Hasmoneans for 80 years, but the Romans came and defeated Aristobulus (Mattathias) and his brother Hyrcanus, the last of the Hasmonean line.

Jesus came to establish a new kingdom based on new ideals that did not continue the earthly theocracy. The clearest description of the standards of his new kingdom with regard to authority is found in Matt 20:25–28. Jesus specifically distinguished between the standards of earthly nations and the standards of His kingdom. Jesus said that the model of the earthly nations was centralized authority that dictates to people whereas His kingdom was to be characterized by service. Jesus’s ideal was that all would follow God of their own volition and out of that commitment to God would flow service to fellow humans (John 13:34–35; 15:12, 17).

May Protestant Christians truly follow the Jesus we profess to follow and read our Bibles, serve others out of a commitment to Jesus, and consciously avoid encouraging or calling for centralized religious authorities to exercise well-intentioned but misguided efforts to get other people to “do right.” Let us place the authority in our lives and encourage those around us to make the Bible, and the Bible only, our rule of faith and practice.

BIO: Daniel Royo has served as a pastor for 15 years in Virginia and Maryland. He is married and has two sons. Daniel currently resides in Maryland.

Endnotes

[i] For a short summary of these various false teachings, see this page.

[ii] https://lonelypilgrim.com/2012/06/28/st-irenaeus-on-the-unity-and-orthodoxy-of-the-faith/

[iii] For a short summary of the development from multiple elders to a single bishop overseeing the church, see: https://www.michaeljkruger.com/were-early-churches-ruled-by-elders-or-a-single-bishop/

[iv] Ibid.

[v] Alistar McGrath, Christianity’s Dangerous Idea: The Protestant Revolution-A History from the Sixteenth Century to the Twenty-First (New York: HarperCollins, 2008), 2. Link

[vi] Ibid., 3. Link

[vii] John L. McKenzie, The Roman Catholic Church (New York: Holt, Rinehart and Winston, 1969), 198. Link

[viii] https://www.reformation21.org/shelf-life/is-the-reformation-over.php

[ix] For a scholarly examination of why some evangelicals become Roman Catholic, see Scot McKnight, “From Wheaton to Rome: Why Evangelicals Become Roman Catholic,” JETS 45.3 (2002), 451–472. Link

[x] For a list of the kings of Israel and Judah with an evaluation of their faithfulness to God, see this chart.

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Halloween and Biblical Faith 

Is there a Monster under your bed?

By Vinnie MacIsaac

It is interesting to me that the word holiday comes from the linguistic heritage of “Holy Day.” Originally all western “holidays,” were early church holy days. As Western Civilization evolved and multiple stages of development took place this concept for better or worse got lost among us.

This brings me to an idea I’d like to discuss in brief;  Often at this time of year, Christians get all worked up about Halloween. Just check your social media and you will find the endless post, debates, and clever images about the Christian debate of this “holiday.” In fact, Halloween, if you like it or hate it, has a very religious background.  According to The American Desk Encyclopedia, the etymology of the word means hallowed evening or holy evening. It was originally the evening before the day that the church dedicated to remembering the dead in particular the martyrs who gave their lives to keep the faith alive. By the middle-ages, it had evolved to include the concepts of saints and purgatory and then as with most church holidays as they spread out they picked up an arraignment of pagan influences. Soon saints became spirits and it was not long before witches and Jack-o’-lanterns and such were added to the mix.

Reformation day

Clearly, as a Protestant Christian, I can’t and don’t believe in purgatory or praying to dead saints anymore then I can believe in ghosts or witches and Jack-o’-lanterns. But I will tell you what I do very much believe in; I do think we all need to be incredibly thankful and filled with holy gratitude for the millions of martyrs who gave their lives to keep this faith alive.

Martin Luther kick-started the Reformation via Protest!

Speaking of martyrs here is an interesting Halloween fact that most of us lose sight of; October  31st is not only Halloween but is it Reformation Day. It is the day that Martin Luther nailed his  95 Theses on the door of the Schlosskirche church in Wittenberg. While Luther’s objections had been provoked by the practice of Indulgences (the idea that you could pay a fee to the church to be excused of a sin) he set off the firestorm that became the Protestant Reformation. The founding principles of the Protestant Reformation were Sola scriptura (by the Bible alone), Sola fide (justification by faith alone), and Sola gratia (salvation by grace alone). In essence, Protestants wanted to follow their own convictions in matters of faith and be true to what they came to understand to be Biblical faith. And what was the cost of such a noble desire? Estimates of the death toll of the Protestant Reformation greatly vary depending on the faith background of the historian, but it is believed to be somewhere between 50-150 million people died because they were declared heretics for following their own beliefs rather than the Roman Catholic dogma. So again I say, let us remember the martyrs who died to keep this Biblical faith alive!

Oh, how ironic it is that on the very day the world should be celebrating Martin Luther, Religious Liberty, and the free of conviction for all, they are instead fixated on paying honor to evil in its various forms. This Halloween I tell you there is a monster under your bed. Evil has not gone away, religious oppression has not been lifted out of this world, nor has the idea of killing people because of their religious beliefs suddenly disappeared. This Halloween I call you to join in Reformation day and join my protest.

Sola scriptura (By Scripture Alone)
Sola Fide (By Faith Alone)
Sola gratia (By Grace Alone)

I am a Protestant, and I still protest! 

• I protest all who seek to force their convictions unwillingly upon others.

• I protest all who would try to take the liberty of choice in religious matters away from the masses.

• I protest all who label others with terms like heretic so that they can simply dismiss their views and attack their character rather than their ideas.

I protest all who think it would be better for someone to be dead than to believe wrong (differently) or even not at all.

And lastly, I protest all who use religion as an excuse to hate, discriminate, and use physical violence or murder as a means to an end.

Join me, if only for this day, and become a Protestant this Halloween, rather then a demon in disguise hiding under the bed of religion.

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