Authority and the Five Books

I read with great interest and appreciation the article “The 5 Books of Adventist Theology” (AT Nov/Dec 2003). You made the statement, “For a liberal like myself to affirm Ellen White as an inspired authority says as much about my understanding of inspiration as it does about my views on Ellen White.” I have concern about what this says about authority. I thought authority is something that is conferred, not inspired. According to Jesus as recorded in Matthew 28:18, NIV, “All authority in heaven and on earth has been given to me.” He did give His disciples authority over demons, but not over other human beings…. The letter to the editor by Kevin Paulson made an impassioned argument in favor of granting Ellen White the same authority granted to the Bible writers, but the Bible writers don’t have authority either, because Jesus has it all. The Bible writers were witnesses who received light from heaven, and they testified concerning that light.

And just like any human witnesses, they were capable of making some mistakes. Kevin Paulson would have done well to review the classic statement by E. G. White in Desire of Ages, page 324, “The soul that is yielded to Christ becomes His own fortress, which He holds in a revolted world, and He intends that no authority shall be known in it but His own.” And so neither she nor the Bible writers should hold a place of authority in my soul or your soul, for Christ intends that no authority shall be known in it but His own.

Monroe Duerksen
Via the Internet

Prophets and Errors

You (McLarty, in AT Sept/Oct 2003) have failed to recognize the clear Biblical teaching on prophecy, i.e., as a spokesman for Jehovah, a true prophet is not permitted to speak error (see Deut.18:22 and 13:1-3), and will be corrected should he do so (Cf. Num. 12, Num. 20:10-12, and 
I Chron. 17:1-4). If, indeed, Ellen White reversed any public statement, she did it while she was alive; and we may accept her final teaching as authoritative. As you say, even a prophet may grow in understanding; but neither modern “scholarship” nor “translating” has ever disproven anything Ellen White has prophetically proclaimed. If the journalists in your well-produced, albeit “progressive”-leaning, magazine will fairly consider the opinions here and previously presented, a perspective closer to true Seventh-day Adventism might one day be more evident in Adventist Today.

Jerry Garner
Grand Junction, Colo.

Humility and the Five Books

I love the conclusion of your article, “The Five Books of Adventist Theology” (AT Sept/Oct 2003), except for the first line of that last paragraph. Why do we need to be afraid to acknowledge an infallible Bible?… If indeed humility is a cardinal virtue, why not accept Jesus’ own assertion that “the Scripture cannot be broken” (John 10:35), and 
acknowledge the Bible as the “infallible point of contact with God”?… I do well not to attribute those seeming deficiencies to its divine Author or even to its human authors, but rather to the puniness of my degenerate brain…. An observation on #5: I think “Christian history” had very little to do with our maturing understanding of the Trinity. It was 1) ongoing Bible study; and 2) Ellen White…. And my confidence in Ellen White grows as I see her clarity of Scriptural understanding on this subject…. She was reading her Bible, and listening to the Spirit…. Adventist theology is indeed a human endeavor and therefore subject to revision, clarification and even correction. But genuine Adventism doesn’t do theology from the theologians or from the rocks or from human reasoning—we do it from the Bible; we do it humbly, recognizing we’re frail enough to benefit from an end-time prophetic voice. Only with that foundation can it be helpful to reference the clouded “books” of nature and Christian history. That’s why Goldstein was right (though he could have been kinder) to say that those who wish to do theology from other sources ought not to call themselves Adventists.

Dale Wolcott
Mt. Pleasant, Mich.

Conservative and Pseudo-Liberal

I found Timothy Standish’s discussion on “liberals” and “pseudo-liberals” and his metaphor of the “little pond” and the “big, bad ocean” (AT Sept/Oct 2003) superb. Many words change meaning over time, but some do so rapidly and drastically…. In politics, for example, “Democracy” can mean by now just about anything on the spectrum…. The meaning of “liberal” and “conservative” has also been severely distorted. The 19th-century “classical” liberal was strongly in favor of liberty, small government, economic freedom, respect for the individual, and going to war when unavoidable. Today’s “liberal,” on the contrary, wants big government to take care of almost everything, [and] subordinates individual freedom to equality and “tolerance.” …In the church context, the use of such ambiguous labels leads to vast confusion and frequent misunderstandings. What all of us Adventists must do is state clearly and specifically what we want to keep and change, and why—without allowing the pseudo-intellectuals and other unbelievers in the “big, bad ocean” (today’s orthodoxy) to decide it for us. Perhaps some new words are needed to express the various possible positions. In the meantime, Dr. Standish’s neologism “pseudo-liberal” is an apt suggestion.

Hector Hammerly
Maple Ridge, B.C., Canada

Death Before Sin?

Concerning the origin of our traditional view of when death came into the world, you seem to suggest (AT editorial Sept/Oct 2003) that our traditional view might not be correct. However, one source for that view is probably Paul. See Romans 5:12-14 where death seems to have entered the world through Adam’s sin.

Howard White
Saniku Gakuin College, Japan