One of the greatest benefits of explicitly stated creeds is that they protect the church from unwritten and unstated creeds. Everyone has beliefs about what the Bible teaches. But beliefs that are not publicly accessible in simple, clear, written form are not subject to public scrutiny. Furthermore, they are not open to correction because there is a denial that they even exist. “I just believe the Bible,” say some. Yes, all fine and good. But the point at issue is always: “What does the Bible mean?” Creeds provide a publicly accessible standard and safeguard in articulating a church’s official teaching. As such, they can be amended as needed. No such safeguards exist for unstated creeds that exist only in one’s mind.

It is not uncommon to hear someone within a denomination that subscribes to a specific confessional document or binding polity statement complain that their denomination is elevating human teaching above God’s word itself. This sentiment seems to be plausible to a good number of people. I encountered one version of this complaint this year at the Presbyterian Church in America’s General Assembly. It was specifically about whether women can serve in the role of deacons. The argument, presented on the floor of the General Assembly, was that the PCA’s Book of Church Order, especially a proposed clarification being voted on at GA, is more rigid on this point than Scripture itself.

One way to defend the PCA’s confession (the Westminster Confession of Faith) or polity (the Book of Church Order) is jure divino Presbyterianism (divine right Presbyterianism), which contends, as John Lafayette Girardeau (1825–1898) put it, that “that what is not commanded, either explicitly or implicitly in the Scriptures, is prohibited to the church. She can utter no new doctrine, make no new laws, ordain no new forms of government, and invent no new modes of worship.” Assuming, then, that the Westminster Confession and the PCA’s Book of Church Order are truly biblical, Presbyterians are bound to strict adherence to these documents.

There is, however, another approach to defending our church’s constitutional standards. It is in many ways more prosaic and commonsense, but is also to my mind based on irrefutable logic for those who value honesty and who operate in good faith within our denomination. It is an approach that I encountered years ago in a short introductory essay to Robert Shaw’s (1795–1863) exposition of the Westminster Confession of Faith by the Scottish Presbyterian pastor and seminary professor William Maxwell Hetherington (1795­–1863).

Why Creeds and Confessions?

Hetherington’s argument unfolds as follows. Because of sin the human mind is prone to error. Thus, even the simplest of statements can be understood in a large number of ways. Not all of these can be correct. Hetherington does not initially discuss the Bible. He simply notes a reality all people regularly face: a failure to agree on the meaning of some piece of written communication. A large number of people might even affirm that they agree with a given statement, but it would be impossible to know whether they are in actual agreement unless and until they explain that statement in their own words. “This,” Hetherington notes, “would be really his Creed, or Confession of Faith, respecting that truth.” If all agreed on that point in said “creed” or “confession” they would have a common confession about the meaning of the statement in question. This confession (whether actually capturing the meaning of the statement or not), if stated clearly, could then be used as the grounds for admission into a body of people who together hold that truth.

Thus far, Hetherington argues, few people would find such a process problematic. No one would be infringing on the liberty of anyone else or attempting to control their personal convictions about anything:

If any man cannot agree with the joint testimony borne by those who are agreed, this may be a cause of mutual regret; but it could neither confer on them any right to compel him to join them, contrary to his convictions, nor entitle him to complain on account of being excluded from a body of men with those opinions he did no concur. No man in strict integrity, indeed, could even wish to become one of a body of men with whom he did not agree on that peculiar point which formed the basis of their association.[2]

This is a matter of simple and basic honesty. No one forced anyone to join together unwillingly in affirming his “creed.” It was freely subscribed to by all as an agreed upon declaration of the meaning of a given statement or statements. At the same time, no one could fault the body affirming that “creed” for excluding others who do not hold to it. Why would anyone want to be a member of a body the holds to a creed they do not believe is accurate anway?

Hetherington then moves to consider these principles with regard to religious truths. It often happens that even those committed to the inerrancy and absolute authority of Scripture do not agree on what the Scriptures teach. Any number of such people, for example, might say that they affirm Paul’s teaching on deacons in 1 Timothy 3:8–13. It would be impossible to know, however, whether those people were in agreement about the meaning of that passage until they explained it in their own words.

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