WHY I AM/NOT CHARISMATIC: HISTORY OF THE GIFTS – C MICHAEL PATTON
by C Michael PattonNovember 29th, 2011
24 CommentsThe following is part of a discussion (not debate) between two friends, Sam Storms and C. Michael Patton, about the charismatic gifts of the Spirit. Sam is a Charismatic. Michael is not. If you have come in late, you can access the entire series here.
BTW: After Sam and I respond to each other’s post on history, we both have a short conclusion then this series is tetelestai!
Sam, I have often admitted how important personal experience is to my understanding of this issue about the continuation of the spiritual gifts in question. I try not to hide behind some presumption of objectivity, as if I can read the Scriptures and ignore my own experiences. The best I can hope to do is recognize and harness their influence on me. However, I don’t think I am, even in an ideal world, expected to ignore them. Ronald Nash talked about this in his workLife’s Ultimate Questions. He gives four tests by which we must evaluate a proposed worldview. One of these tests is the test of “practice.” In what he calls “the laboratory of life,” a given worldview must be evaluated by this question: “can people who profess that worldview live consistently in harmony with the system they profess?” (28). As Scripture is my ultimate guide and I remain unconvinced that it speaks clearly to this issue, I have to ask myself this question: If I were to convince myself that the gifts of tongues, prophecy, and healings were continuing and normative (or “normal” as you , Sam, would rather put it) in the church today, does my experience affirm or deny this belief? At this point, as you know, I have not had a definite experience of these gifts, much less in any normative way. Therefore, I would be forced to live in a bit of cognitive dissonance were I to become charismatic. My said beliefs would play tug-a-war with my experience and greatly weaken the reality of such beliefs.
But it is not personal experience that concerns me right now. Rather, we are talking about the corporate experience of the historic body of Christ. We are asking the question: What does the cumulative experience of those in the Spirit-led church over the last two-thousand years say about this issue. Were these gifts “normative” in church history? Nash also talks about this. He calls this “the test of outer experience.” One may have a personal experience (or non-experience) which is not in concert with the experiences of those around them. About this he says, “It is proper for people to object when a worldview claim conflicts with what we know to be true of the physical universe” (ibid, 26). Examples he gives are beliefs that “pain and death are illusions”, “all humans are innately good”, and “humans are making constant progress toward perfections” (ibid, 27). In other words, we can believe these things about ourselves, but when we look at the experience of those around us and who have gone before us, what does their testimony evidence?
When it comes to the cumulative experience of the historic body of Christ, I find it very difficult to believe that these gifts we are talking about were normative. And since “normative” or “normal” is a key characteristic of what it means to be charismatic, the cumulative experience of the historic body of Christ, as this point, is one of the things that keeps me from being charismatic. In fact, I am confident enough to say this: if the historic body of Christ evidenced these gifts as being normative, then I would be a charismatic, no matter what my personal experience said (so long as the Bible was not against it). However, in my opinion, the historic evidence is not there. I might be able to grant that some of these gifts in question have continued here and there, but it would take quite a bit of historical revision for me to read into the history of the church any normative experience of the gifts of tongues, prophecy, and healing. What we seem to have is sporadic at best.
My basic understanding at this point is this: shortly after the death of the Apostles, we see asignificant decline in the gifts of prophecy, miracles, and tongues. When we do find them here and there, claims are often ambiguous, finding their practice on the fringe of Christianity. Even when we might be able to make a case for their presence here and there, there is no sense in which these gifts were “normative” or “normal” in church life and practice, especially after the third century. At best, it seems evident that the gifts slowely died out in the early church and do not resurface in any “normative” sense until they supposedly reappeared in the nineteenth century.
The Early Church
As I have studied this, I think that any absolute claims to the cessation of the gifts directly after the close of the canon (ala B.B. Warfield, Counterfiet Miracles) are overstated. It does seem like the life of the early church had a basic recognition and belief in the continuation of the gifts in question. Here is a quick run down of what I see as the most significant :
The Didache (ca. 110) speaks about the tests of a prophet (II.8). The Shepherd of Hermas (ca. 95 – 115) claims to be prophetic revelation itself. Justin Martyr (A.D. 103 – 165) in his Dialogue with Trypho speaks about the prophetic gifts being with them “until this day”. Polycarp seems to have received a prophecy about his own martyrdom (Mart. Pol. 5.2 ANF). The Epistle of Barnabus(ca. 80 – 120) gives indication of the continuation of prophecy (Barn. 16.9 ANF ). Irenaeus (d. 202) has this testimony about the status of the gifts in his day: “In like manner we do also hear of many brethren in the Church, who possess prophetic gifts, and who through the Spirit speak all kinds of languages, and bring to light for the general benefit the hidden things of men, and declare the mysteries of God” (Against Heresies, 5.6.1; see also 2.32.4).
But with The Didache, it is so early that this is what we would expect. It is quite possible that this was written before or shortly after 2 John which deals with this very thing. The Shepherd does not add anything to the mix since it is self-proclaimed prophecy that no charismatic I know of accepts as legit. (Besides this, I am not sure what you would propose to do with extra-canonical prophecy that is written down anyway!). In other words, the best it can do is evidence the continuation of false prophecy which no one disputes continues until this day. I think Justin Martyr’s testimony is important and evidences at least a belief that the gifts continued (even if he does not suggest any personal possession of any of these gifts). Polycarp is very interesting and useful. Although the mentioned account of his martyrdom is not written by him, it does show that among the community who wrote it shortly after his death, the continuation of prophetic revelation was believed to be somewhat normal. Irenaeus certainly seems to affirm the continuation of the gifts. What stands out to me is that he speaks of dead people being raised and remained with them “for many years”. However, as Gareth Resse points out in New Testament History: Acts, the verb for “hear” is in the perfect tense which may imply that Irenaeus believed the gifts were dying out. In other words, “he was saying that he used to hear this, but does not necessarily hear it now” (119). There are many other early church fathers (pre-third century) who seem to affirm knowledge of the continuation of these gifts.
However, I can’t fail to recognize what seems to be the eventual departure of these gifts. Even D.A. Carson, a continuationist, says this: “There is a considerable historiography that argues that the phenomenon of tongues and other ‘charismatic’ gifts dies out fairly early in the history of the church.” (Showing the Spirit, 165). He goes on, “So far as the early church is concerned, it appears as if tongues were extremely rare after the beginning of the second century, but prophecy was known and cherished in the church until the rise of Montanism” (166). Finally he brings about his conclusion:
What can be safely concluded from the historical evidence? First, there is enough evidence that some form of “charismatic” gifts continued sporadically across the centuries of church history that it is futile to insist on doctrinaire grounds that every report is spurious or the fruit of demonic activity or psychological aberration. Second, from the death of Montanism until the turn of the present century, such phenomena were never part of a major movement. In each instance, the group involved was small and generally on the fringe of Christianity. Third, the great movements of piety and reformation that have in God’s mercy occasionally refreshed and renewed the church were not demonstrably crippled because their leaders did not, say, speak in tongues. . . . It would be a strange calculus which concluded that a modern charismatic lives on a higher spiritual plane than did, say, Augustine, Balthasar Hubmaier, Jonathan Edwards, Count von Zinzendorf, or Charles Spurgeon, since none of these spoke in tongues. Fourth, very often the groups that did emphasize what today would be called charismatic gifts were either heretical or quickly pushed their ‘gifts’ to such extremes that their practice proved dangerous to the church” (166-67).
Many see the sharp decline in the supernatural gifts being caused by the rise of institutionalism in the church. Michael Harper, a late British Priest in the Antiochian Orthodox Church and leader in the British charismatic movement, wrote about the early stages of cessation in the church as liturgical practices pushed out the participation of the laity. He says, ”. . . it is possible that at this early stage, the rot was already setting in, which led eventually to the temporary cessation of these gifts” (As At the Beginning, 19).
But the “cessation” seems to come earlier than this. Origen writes in the early third century: “The Holy Spirit gave signs of his presence at the beginning of Christ’s ministry, and after his ascension he gave still more, but since that time signs have diminished, although there are still traces of his presence in the Jews who have had their souls purified by the Gospel, and their actions regulated by its influence” (Against Celsus, 7.8).
I think the better argument to make is that these gifts slowly died out after the Apostles with the main turning point coming during the Montanist controversy in the late second century. Montanus was a former priest of the ecstatic cult of Cybeles who claimed to have received a fuller revelation of the Spirit than previously possessed by the church. Montanus stressed new prophetic revelations which were delivered through unknown ecstatic utterances (tongues). I am not sure that modern charismatics, including you Sam, can (or want to) claim this movement as precursors to the movement as both your view of tongues and your view of prophecy seems to be very inconsistent with Montanus (i.e. tongues, according to you, is neither ecstatic or prophetic). As well, I am am sure you are aware that one of his two prophetesses, Maximilla, is quoted by Epiphanius (48.2) as saying “After me there will be prophecy no longer, but fulfillment.” Gonzalez says “in its origin Montanism does not seem to have advocated a return to the practice of prophecies but claimed rather that Montanus and his two prophetesses had received a special and final revelation, so that one was not to expect that the prophetic spirit would be extended to the rest of Christians (A History of Christian Thought, 143). For a modern charismatic to claim this movement as historic evidence of the gifts is quite self-defeating. For if Maximilla was part of a legitimate prophetic movement, her central prophecy negates the modern charismatic movement!
Not only that, but this trio’s lives are are filled with scandal. Their “prophecy” came only when they were in an ecstatic trance and completely out of control. Both Maximillia and Pricilla left their husbands to follow Montanus. Even Gary Steven Shogren, a continuationist, says “Those who believe that the gift of prophecy is still operative today should think twice before they choose the Montanists as their precursors” (“Christian Prophecy And Canon In The Second Century: A Response To B. B. Warfield” JETS 40:4 [December 1997] p. 621). About the Montanists, Harper writes that they “tended increasingly to fanaticism and frightened the Church into soft-pedaling the supernatural and asserting its authority” (Harper, 19). I think that it is important to note that Montanus’ cultist practice in the worship of Bacchus “was extremely fanatical, and its adherents also spoke in tongues” (Herbert G. Bell, Speaking in Tongues, 20).
However, it is interesting to note that Eusibius, writing about the Montanism controversy, suggests that the widespread distribution of these gifts allowed cover for the Montanus heresy to flourish: “[F]or numerous other manifestations of the miraculous gift of God, still occurring in various churches, led many to believe that these men too were prophets.” (Ecclesiastical History, Book 5, chap 3). This evidences the continuation of the gifts into the second century. However, since Eusebius says that they were “still occuring” at that time (second century), he is letting us know that they were not in his day just a couple of hundred years later.
By the time we get to the fourth-century, these gifts seem to have almost completely disappeared with no real fan-fare (i.e. there was no debate or division in the church concerning whether or not they continued). It was a “de facto” cessation. In other words, the church was cessationist not due to any theological and/or biblical reason, but because, “as a matter of fact”, these gifts had ceased. It was at this point that the church fathers begin to seek a theological or biblical explanation as to why they ceased. Notice what John Chrysostom (347-407), the great Antiochean exegete, says when he comes to 1 Cor. 12 about spiritual gifts: “This whole place is very obscure . . . but the obscurity is produced by our ignorance of the facts referred to and by their cessation, being such as then used to occur, but now no longer take place” (ECF 2.12.1.1.29.0). Chrysostom is “ignorant” of these gifts (even how to explain what they were) because of his experience of their “cessation.” He is not living in the time of a charismatic controversy, he is just stating the way things were in his day, just a few centuries after the last Apostle died. He is a de facto cessationist. If the gifts were still being practiced in his day, the implication is that he would have been able to explain to his listeners what these gifts were. But since they had ceased, he does not know how to explain this passage.
The same can be said of the the Latin church represented by the great St. Augustine (354-430). Notice what he says when it comes to the gift of tongues.
“In the earliest time the Holy Ghost fell upon them that believed: and they spoke with tongues which they had not learned ‘as the Spirit gave them utterance.’ These were signs adapted to the time. For it was proper for the Holy Spirit to evidence Himself in all tongues, and to show that the Gospel of God had come to all tongues [languages] over the whole earth. The thing was done for an authentication and it passed away.” (Ten Homilies on the first Epistle of John VI, 10).
Augustine limits the practice of these gifts (particularly tongues) to the “earliest time.” Augustine believed that these were “signs adapted to the time.” The adaptation has to do with the necessity of authenticating the Gospel message. While Augustine gives more of a theological explanation for their supposed passing than does anyone previous, he is still a de facto cessationist. If you were to ask Augustine “How do you know these gifts ‘passed away?’” my guess is that he would simply say “Because they passed away. Because no one has them anymore!”
Many say that Augustine recanted this position later in his life. However, I do not believe this is true (at least not with regard to this particular issue). When he speaks of this in City of God22.8, his recantation comes by way of a simple affirmation that God is still performing miracles. With this, all Christians, charismatic and cessationists, agree. We all believe that miracles have continued (although they are not normative or they would be called “regulars”!). Augustine’s account in City of God, however, is a listing of miracles that he said he witnessed. Among them are people healed by the tears of a bishop and by various relics including those from dead martyrs. At one point a young man prays to “The Twenty Martyrs” for money to buy a new coat. He is obliged, according to Augustine, when a chef finds money in a fishes belly and gives it to the young man on behalf of the Twenty Martyrs. If continuationism is correct, these accounts add no weight to their arguments as they are not illustrating the continuation of the giving of the charismata to people, only God’s continued activity through many various (and bizarre) means. I doubt you, Piper, Grudem, or Keener promote the use of such relics in your church?
Theodoret of Cyrus (c. 393–c. 466) spoke to this issue as well:
In former times those who accepted the divine preaching and who were baptized for their salvation were given visible signs of the grace of the Holy Spirit at work in them. Some spoke in tongues which they did not know and which nobody had taught them, while others performed miracles or prophesied. The Corinthians also did these things, but they did not use the gifts as they should have done. They were more interested in showing off than in using them for the edification of the church. . . . Even in our time grace is given to those who are deemed worthy of holy baptism, but it may not take the same form as it did in those days. (Commentary on the First Epistle to the Corinthians, 240, 43)
Again, this evidences a de facto cessation in the history of the church. Throughout the middle ages, while we do have accounts of the bizarre and the unexplained with relics and various miracles, these do not evidence either a continuation of the gifts in question or even a belief that they continued. The unofficial position of the church at large was that of de factocessationism.
John Calvin (1509-1564) was also a de facto cessationist. ‘The gift of healing, like the rest of the miracles, which the Lord willed to be brought forth for a time, has vanished away in order to make the preaching of the Gospel marvelous for ever” (Institutes of the Christian Religion, IV:19, 18). John Owen (1616-1683) falls into this camp as well: “Gifts which in their own nature exceed the whole power of all our faculties, that dispensation of the Spirit is long since ceased and where it is now pretended unto by any, it may justly be suspected as an enthusiastic delusion” (Works IV, 518). Jonathan Edward (1703-1758), whom you, Sam, have said is possibly the greatest theologian in the history of the church (at least in the top five!) was also a de facto cessationist, “Of the extraordinary gifts, they were given in order to the founding and establishing of the church in the world. But since the canon of Scriptures has been completed, and the Christian church fully founded and established, these extraordinary gifts have ceased” (Charity and its Fruits, 29).
Finally, the Westminster Confession of Faith: “Therefore it pleased the Lord, at sundry times, and in divers manners, to reveal Himself, and to declare that His will unto His Church; and afterwards, for the better preserving and propagating of the truth, and for the more sure establishment and comfort of the Church against the corruption of the flesh, and the malice of Satan and of the world, to commit the same wholly unto writing; which maketh the Holy Scripture to be most necessary; those former ways of God’s revealing His will unto His people being now ceased.”
In sum, Hinson and Oates, speaking about the history of tongues say this: “The first sixteen centuries of its history were lean ones indeed. If the first five centuries were lean the next were starvation years for the practice in Western Christendom and doubtful ones in Eastern Christendom” (Stagg, E. Glenn Hinson, and Wayne E. Oates, Glossolalia [Nashville: Abingdon Press, 1967], 45–46).
Thomas Edgar summarizes the witness of history this way:
After a few alleged instances in the second century there is a gap of almost 1,000 years before a few more occur. Obviously it would not have been difficult to produce evidence for these gifts during the apostolic age. Why then is there such a dearth of evidence if the gifts continued throughout church history? The alleged instances are even more rare if restricted to genuine believers, and if hearsay evidence is omitted. If instances of the gift of healing rather than supposed answers to prayer are considered, the alleged instances all but vanish. That these miraculous workings ceased in the past can hardly be refuted, and this is recognized by many charismatics. Dayton feels that many charismatics actually prefer to grant that certain gifts ceased, since they regard today’s phenomena as a latter-day pouring out of the Spirit. . . .The only reasonable explanation for the lack of these gifts in church history is that God did not give them. If He had given them, they would have occurred. (“The Cessation of the Gifts”, Bibliotheca Sacra, Vol. 145, 1988).
The history of the church evidences a de facto cessation which is not unlike the close canon of Scripture. Why has the canon “closed”? Because God stopped inspiring writers to add to it. It is that simple. It is a de facto closing. Sure, some could provide a theological explanation as to why the canon closed (i.e. the fullness of time, the finality of Christ’s revelation, the completion of soteriological history, etc.), but the fact is the reason why people believe that the canon had closed was because it, as a matter of fact, closed. No inspired verified prophet or apostle was adding to it. Why have the gifts ceased (if they have)? Because they ceased. It is a de facto cessation. There is not really a need for a theological explanation.
Again (and I have to repeat this because someone is going to misapply what I am saying), this is not to say that people believed that God was silent during this period or that he did not intervene or work in miraculous ways. The church was not deist. This was the biggest and most glaring weakness that I observed in Jack Deere’s Suprised by the Power of the Spirit when he deals with this historic argument. He equates evidence that the historic church believed in the miraculous with evidence that they were continuationists. You can’t equate the two without misrepresenting the issues. The while historic Christian church has always believed in the miraculous, they have not believed in the continuation of the supernatural sign gifts, by and large.
At the very least, I think that we can all agree that the gifts in question were not normative. Therefore, the mass majority of the historic body of Christ has not been charismatic. Nash’s test of “outer experience” is found wanting.
Why Weren’t these Gifts Normative?
Assuming that I am correct here that these gifts were not normative (to say the least) in the history of the church, what are my options? I think there are three:
1. Hold to a cessationist position that these gifts ceased due to an absolute exhaustion in purpose. (The traditional cessationist position.)
2. Believe that these gifts went out of practice due to the sinful rebellion of the church and were “rediscovered” in the twentieth century charismatic movement.
3. Believe that God works when and where he wills and that, for some unknown reason, his church has not experienced the gifts of the charismata in any normative way since the early church.
I think that both 1 and 3 have validity. The hardest one for me to consider is 2. To believe that Augustine, Anselm, Aquinas, Luther, Calvin, Edward, Spurgeon, and all the rest of the de factocessationists were in rebellion to God with regard to this issue is incredibly presumptuous and undermining of their collective spirituality. As well, it turns God into a cheerleader in heaven who has a great desire to give people this power and encouragement, but is simply waiting on them to change their minds about whether or not these gifts continue. But since they were cessationists, God was content to wait on them to change their position in order to manifest himself in the church in miraculous ways.
And to equate this to the loss and rediscovery of the Gospel during the Reformation (as some do) is a false comparison in my opinion. The loss of the Gospel was a loss of an understanding of a doctrine (sola fide), not a loss of the effectiveness of this doctrine. With the gift of tongues, for example, you never have as a prerequisite a belief in the truthfulness of a doctrine of continuationism before Christians experience their effectiveness. In all three instances in Acts, for example, we have those who speak in tongues simply by being overwhelmed by the power of God as a de facto reality. In other words, they were not instructed to believe in a continuation of tongues before they could experience its benefits.
As well, when we see the gift of prophecy evidenced in the Bible, God simply speaks. He does not wait until someone converts and believes that he is still speaking before he will speak to them or through them. Look at the instance of Samuel in 1 Samuel 3. God did not wait for Samuel to believe that he was still speaking. In fact, in the narrative it says that a “word from the Lord was rare in those days and visions infrequent” (1 Sam. 3:1). Nevertheless, God simply speaks to Samuel. There is no explanation as to why the word from the Lord was rare; it is just stated as a matter of fact. We get no indication that Samuel was a chosen vessel of God because he was part of some ancient charismatic revival who did not believe that words from the Lord were rare. Why were words from the Lord rare? We don’t know. They just were, de facto.
Why aren’t these gifts we are talking normative in the history of the church? I don’t know. Maybe they did cease due to an exhaustion of purpose. Maybe they only show up here and there. Either way, the word “normal” or “normative” does not relate to the history of the church with regard to these gifts and I don’t believe it is because of a lack of spirituality.
The implications for us today are very important, though not determinative. God could have a “latter rain” movement. Today’s more “normal” expression of these gifts, if they are legitimate, could be from God even if the history of the church has experienced some degree of a cessation of these gifts. However, I think that it is important to see that if our “laboratory of life” does not find the presence of these gifts either personally or corporately, this does not mean that we are in sinful rebellion. Like with Edwards, Calvin, Anselm, and Augustine, it could just mean that it is not God’s will for these gifts to be normative in our experience. In other words, maybe it is not God’s will for some of us to be charismatic.
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