I haven’t put up a Torrance quote for awhile, so how about this one from him on the relation to reading Scripture Trinitarianly:
In seeking to interpret God’s trinitarian self-revelation through the medium of the gospels and epistles we have to do with an altogether deeper dimension in knowledge. But here it holds true that it is through personal dwelling in Christ and interiorising his Word within us that we enter into a cognitive union with him as God incarnate, and are thereby admitted to an intimate knowledge of God’s self-revelation in its intrinsic wholeness and are enabled to discern the truth of his self-revelation as we could not do otherwise. By indwelling the Scriptures of the New Testament and interiorising their message we become drawn into the circle of God’s revelation of himself through himself. Spiritually and theologically regarded, this kind of indwelling, in Christ and his Word, involves faith, devotion, meditation, prayer and worship in and through which we are given discerning access to God in his inner Communion as Father, Son and Holy Spirit. Any faithful interpretation of the Scriptures operates on different levels, the linguistic and the conceptual level, but unless the interpreter participates in the movement of God’s unique self-revelation through Christ and in the Spirit which gave rise to the Scriptures and has left its imprint upon them, he or she will fail to understand them in their deep spiritual dimension and will be blind to their essential truth content. Hence if we are to interpret the Holy Scriptures we must cultivate the habit of tuning into them as a whole in order to penetrate into their centre of meaning, so that the spiritual realities and truths of divine revelation to which they testify may be allowed to govern our knowing and shape our understanding of them. It is when we interpret different passages and statements in the light of the whole that their real meaning and force become apparent. (Thomas F. Torrance, “The Christian Doctrine of God: One Being Three Persons,” 38)
Nice, eh?!
“…but unless the interpreter participates in the movement of Godβs unique self-revelation through Christ and in the Spirit which gave rise to the Scriptures and has left its imprint upon them, he or she will fail to understand them in their deep spiritual dimension and will be blind to their essential truth content.”
This sounds a lot like many of the Patristic authors. The more I read from him, the more I like good old TF.
Brian,
Great to hear from you! Yes, the regula fidei was something that held a primary place in TF Torrance’s “depth dimension” hermeneutical approach. I just read, my soon to be superivsor’s paper that he has just penned on TFT’s hermeneutics. He will be reading it at ETS, will you be there (in San Francisco). He uncovers some points about TFT’s approach that I think you would find helpful relative to your comment here. Anyway, can’t say anymore about that π . Glad you found my blog too!
I should say, I hope Myk will be my “soon to be supervisor,” as soon as my funding comes in; whenever that is π .
One thing that makes this perspective uniquely Christian is the implication that reading scripture without the enlightenment of the Holy Spirit and the mind of Christ through the Spirit does not yield the full revelation of God that scripture is meant to produce. Human rational thought alone is insufficient to fully grasp the revelation of God through His Word.
Not to say that much understanding cannot be gained from scripture by an unbeliever, but the revelation of God is always a work of the Spirit and the Word. It is God’s self disclosure to us that give us light. That He is gracious and generous in that disclosure is more evidence of His love for us.
It seems that Torrance is striking the right chord in the center – neither the pole of self assured rationalism nor the subjectivism of the mystic. Rather the trusting and reliance upon God himself to reveal the truth contained in the very human language of the text. In one sense also the incarnation of Christ as Word of God and Son of God and Son of Man is God’s supreme expression of all that He is communicating in scripture so that Christ informs all that was written before and after His appearing.
Some of my Charismatic friends have a saying, “Jesus is perfect theology.” True, but we still wrestle with what we all bring to the text and must rely upon the grace of God to work His revelation in us.
Jon, yes, Christian Theology seems to need “Christ” in order to be Christian, methodologically. And so I think TFT captures this in the framework and grammar that he provides in his own conceptual apparatus for us. I think, as John Webster has pointed out, that a Christian ontology of Scripture needs to be placed in the realm of soteriology (versus the scholastic epistemology, in method); and thus as an aspect of God’s triune speech and self-disclosure as mediated through Christ deposited by the creative active of the Spirit in Scripture.