Learning Together: An Approach to Sustaining a Community of Learning based upon a Lutheran Perspective on Adiaphora (Part I)

A Faculty Learning Group Research Project sponsored by the

Handong Educational Development Center

 written and submitted by

Cordell P. Schulten, MA, JD

Associate Professor of American Law

with

Ellena Ceu, Research Assistant

14 January 2012

Introduction

In any community where people seek to live, learn and work together, there will arise questions about whether certain ideas expressed or practices performed are acceptable and beneficial.  How the community goes about addressing these questions will often determine both the nature of that community’s existence and the quality of the community’s capacity for development and growth.  

This is especially true within Christian communities, such as local churches, ministry organizations and educational institutions.  When Christians seek to worship and serve together in community, they will be faced with the need to resolve questions regarding doctrines and practices that are essential for all the community’s members to agree upon and those teachings and activities that are open to alternative positions in matters of belief and conduct.  The latter category of questions has often been referred to in Christian Theology as adiaphora – a classical Greek word that essentially means “things that are indifferent.”

Because any Christian community will need to address questions over matters where there may be a variety of different positions, it is important to learn from followers of Christ in the past who have sought ways of dealing with adiaphora.  This is especially true for a community of students, professors and administrators who compose a university that endeavors to engage in learning in ways that reflect the character and mind of Christ.  

This article will first undertake a brief survey of the concept of adiaphora from its philosophical origins through, more specifically, its development in Lutheran theology from the time of the Reformation to its 20^th century uses within Lutheran dialogue.  Finally and most importantly, this paper will seek to advance a model for addressing matters of adiaphora that is based upon dimensions Lutheran theology.  

The model suggested will allow for the possibility of matters of adiaphora with the understanding that, while a given idea, teaching or activity may, in and of itself, be indifferent or morally neutral, the intention that prompts the idea or motivates the act as well as the consequences that flow from the idea or conduct will nonetheless have moral implications.  Thus, this application of adiaphora will not lead to an “anything goes” attitude within a community of faith and learning, but rather it will provide a means for sustaining the value of diversity in thought and practice tempered, though, by the ultimate twin goals of glorifying God and edifying others.

This first use of adiaphora can most likely be traced back before the Christian era to the ancient Greek philosopher Pyrrho (~ 365-275 BCE).  He used adiaphora to describe one of three characteristics of the nature of all things.  To Pyrrho all things were by nature adiaphora (i.e. “indifferent and thus, undifferentiable”), astathmêta (i.e. “unstable and thus, not measurable”), and anepikrita (i.e. “indeterminable”).  His thesis on the nature of things is more a statement about the limitations of human observations and understanding about the things humans seek to examine.  

Pyrrho taught that unless a person acknowledged this lack of ability to make ultimate discernments about the true nature of things the person would be unable to experience happiness  (Stanford Encyclopedia).  While Pyrrho’s use of adiaphora is much broader in scope than the use of this term by later Christian theologians, especially those of the Reformation era, his point about the nature of things is still quite instructive.  When we approach questions on which there may be a variety of possible answers, we need to acknowledge our own human limitations that impair our ability to understand and evaluate the ideas and activities of others.   Pyrrho reminds us that we must start from a position of humility.

Following upon Pyrrho, the Stoic philosophers developed the idea of adiaphora beyond a foundational ontological category into an ethical dimension of life.   For them, all ethical questions were divided into those actions which are good, those which are evil, and those which are morally indifferent or adiaphora.  Indeed, the Stoic Aristo is often regarded as the originator of adiaphora as an idea within the field of ethics (Diogenes Laertius, VII, 37).  Aristo’s notion of adiaphora was also influenced by the Cynics.  From these two emerged the prominent Greek usage of adiaphora.  To put their view of ethics simplistically:  virtue was good, vice was bad, but external, material things were adiaphora  (More, 70).  

The implications of this idea led to the conclusion that there is no difference in value between things morally indifferent. (Diogenes Laertius, VII, 2).  To be even more specific, this Greek conception of adiaphora taught that pleasure and freedom from pain are without value and “there was absolutely nothing to choose between the most perfect health and the most grievous sickness.” (Cicero, De Finibus bonorum et malorum, II, 13, 43).  Extended then to its ultimate conclusion, all experiences of life, such as health or humor, poverty or disgrace, or even sickness and death are all adiaphora.

The extremes to which the Greek philosophers took the notion of adiaphora were substantially abated, and one might even say “redeemed” by the understanding of “things indifferent” expressed and applied by later Christian theologians as they discussed the teachings of the Bible, in general, and of Jesus and Paul, in particular, under the category of  adiaphora.  

It is not the purpose of this short paper, however, to delve further into either the classical philosophical idea of adiaphora, nor to chart the development of its early Christian conception.  That task will be more ably undertaken by my colleague in another portion of this project.  Instead, the purpose of this paper is to explore the development and use of adiaphora both within the context of the Lutheran response to the Protestant Reformation in the 16^th and 17^th centuries and in more recent controversies within the Lutheran Church in mid-20^th century Germany.  

Based upon such an exploration, this paper will seek to discern an approach to questions regarding: (1) what qualifies as adiaphora and (2) how a community should respond to matters of adiaphora.  Finally, using this Lutheran approach to adiaphora as an exemplar, this paper will suggest a model for sustaining a community of learning through an openness to understanding the range of ideas and activities that may be appropriately considered as adiaphora and an allowance for a variety of perspectives on adiaphorist matters.


(Part II will focus on a Lutheran perspective on the explanation and application of Adiaphora)