Having said this about synod, (that is; that it’s infallibility is questionable at best), there are some who simply don’t believe there is an infallible way to know truth, and so they advocate synod as a good sociological method to arrive at a mutual decision. This was my third answer.
Synod then takes the role of a decision making machine which expresses the will of the people of the LCA and nothing more. Presumably then, the LCA as a body, becomes nothing more than a cooperating body of people who confess similar things. Hence the vote at synod was treated, by some, as a test to see if there were still enough of us in agreement to maintain the LCA as one synod.
People with this view either find their ‘infallible’ truth somewhere else (see above under Sola Scriptura), from their own subjective convictions, or deny that there is any such thing as truth which is accessible to us. To the latter group, (who deny we can know anything for sure), the LCA becomes simply one of many valid expressions of humanity’s search for God. No absolute truth here.
The Fourth Answer, though less frequent, is that the person is convinced they know truth and they base their lives on this truth. It should be obvious by now why this answer did not impress me.
Besides, as a friend once said, preaching a truth based on a personal conviction has only a legitimate audience of one. That is; If I am deciding what is true for me, then I may only preach this truth to the one person it is true for. Me!
I’m sorry to have spent so much time on the arguments I have been wrestling with. I admit I wrote them more for my own benefit than anything else. Now I return to the story.
Next: Bothering Friends and Presidents
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