Category Archives: Theological Exegesis

Biblicism: Fundamentalism and Solo Scripture §1

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As evangelicals we are known for our commitment to Holy Scripture and its authoritative Word. The further away from the Protestant Reformation evangelicals get, there is a drift among some towards solo Scriptura rather than the reformational sola Scriptura. In other words, the Scripture principle becomes so all encompassing that the belief arises that anything—like Church tradition—that might be seen as extra-scriptural is relegated to the realm of ‘philosophies of men’ rather than the revelation of God. There is a fine, almost unattainable balance to be found at this juncture; I have been writing about that more recently. There seems to be at least two extremes: 1) either people believe that they can read the Bible without appeal to any tradition at all, or 2) people believe that the tradition of the Church is so normative that to read the Bible without it is to be anti-catholic.

Karl Barth in CD I/2 The Doctrine of the Word of God identifies this sort of conundrum as it has obtained in the Protestant history of the Church, in particular. He identifies the problem that our option number one presents, and then offers a corrective by appealing to a softer version of our number two. I believe it is possible, and even necessary to recognize the fact that tradition is an inevitable aspect of biblical interpretation. I say this because the Bible, as is clear upon a moment’s reflection, is written occasionally; in other words, the Bible is written into various situations in an attempt to interject God’s own witness of Himself in and through the nitty gritty of life’s circumstances. But in these occasions there is an inner-theo-logic that the writings presuppose upon in order to make the claims they do in regard to God and all subsequent theological and christological reality. Even the idea that the Bible represents God’s words, that His living voice is heard afresh and anew therein, is a highly theological reality with all sorts of ontological and epistemic implications. It is this theo-logical reality that Barth uses to confront the notion that the Bible can be read all by itself without recognizing the role that theology plays in that reading. He writes at great length:

An interesting peripheral phenomenon of Neo-Protestantism is the peculiar behavior of the so-called Biblicism whose existence and character are strikingly presented in Gottfried Menken (1768-1831) of Bremen, a writer who has never received sufficient notice in dogmatic history. Even in his youth the characteristic complaint was made against Menken that it was “his obsession to try to construct his Christianity out of the “Bible alone….” That is the more or less explicit programme of this modern Biblicism. “My reading is very limited yet very extended; it begins with Moses and ends with John. The Bible and the Bible alone I read and study….” He is not concerned with “what is old or new, with defending or attacking, with assent to the doctrine of any ecclesiastical party, with orthodoxy or heterodoxy, but only with the pure and genuine teaching of the Bible….” And the Church? Menken prefers to avoid the word. For him and for all Biblicists it is a question of “Christianity,” “reality” the “truth,” the “kingdom of God.” The Church is “the eternally pure possessor and preserver of the divine.” Yet only too often its doctrine has “come under the influence of a passing philosophy or the superstitiously venerated theology of the fathers….” “In any case, where is the Church? Is it in the East or the West? Does it gather under the staff of the ecumenical Patriarch of Constantinople or under the threefold crown of the Pope at Rome? Finding no rest or portion in the world, did it long ago retire with the ancient Syrian Christians into the heart of Southern India or with the Waldenses into the valleys of Piedmont? In the fellowship of the Holy Ghost did it infallibly and irrevocably express itself at the Diet of Augsburg or at the Council of Trent or at the National Synod of Dort? Or finally is the true and perfect idea of Christian truth and doctrine to be found in the Idea fidei Fratrum? These few questions point to many things and embrace a large part of Christianity; but many different events, and systems and confessions and millions of Christians are outside their scope: Nestorians, Monophysites, Mennonites, Arminians, Jansenists, Mystics and Quakers; and many others, who all make claim to the name of the Christian Church and the treasure of Christian orthodoxy. These few questions are enough to show that, if we are not ignorant, or if after the customary manner and usage of sectarianism which becomes almost second nature, when we use the word Church we do not regard the confession of the Fathers and the sum total of those who agree with it as the only Christian fellowship in which true doctrine is to be found and to which alone, therefore, or primarily the name of Church belongs, it is not easy even to know what the Church believes and teaches. At an informative glance at so many different periods, countries, languages, systems, costumes and customs, at the confusion and tumult of so many different and contradictory and warring sects, at the medley of so many different confessions and catechisms, it seems difficult and almost impossible to find a standpoint where with insight and material truth we can say: I believe and teach what the Church believes and teaches….” “What is offered me as old is honoured by you as such only because it is found in a 16th century catechism from the Palatinate or Saxony, or because an 11th century Archbishop of Canterbury or a 5th century Bishop of Hippo thought in this way and formulated and determined the matter accordingly. But if you could add to these human authorities a greater one in the utterances of a 2nd century Bishop of Lyons, which you cannot, it would not make any material difference. For it does not matter to me to learn how Ursin or Luther or Anselm or Augustine or Irenaeus thought about the matter and formulated and determined it—they and their decisions are too new. I want that which old, original and solely authentic: Holy Scripture itself” (Schriften VII, 263 f.).[1]

We will let this first part of the long quote and commentary from Barth stand, and then revisit it through a second post where we will hear Barth’s critique and response to Menken’s ‘Biblicism.’ But I would venture to say that Menken’s sentiment resonates with many of us. If we are Free Church evangelicals, in fact, this is the stuff and grist of our daily existences as we move and breathe in the walls of our autonomous standing Bible churches. It is pretty apparent how this might be the logical conclusion to the reformational Scripture principle, but really only a misunderstanding of its practice at least.

We run into the problems this sort of Biblicism presents as we come across other Christians who are just as committed to the Bible’s authority as we are. We realize that there is a dilemma when we are using the same passages of Scripture to “prove” diametrically opposite points; all the while using the same grammatical-historical hermeneutical framework to arrive at our divergent exegetical, and thus, theological conclusions. This sort of ‘pervasive interpretive pluralism’ requires something deeper, as Thomas Torrance would call it, a ‘depth dimension’ wherein we might come to find the sort of ecumenical unity that arises as we dwell upon the Holy reality of Holy Scripture in Jesus Christ. But to think that we can simply stay at the surface of Scripture, as Menken slavishly wants to, doesn’t actually fit with the broad contextual reality of Scripture itself; that is when we see it within a dogmatic frame (as we should).

I will have further comment on this, particularly as we hear Barth’s antidote to Menken’s Biblicism. Don’t get me wrong: I lean Biblicist myself, but I think it’s naïve to think that Biblicism can mean a sort of tabula rasa of its own ‘structuralist’ or coherentist meaning. In other words, I think there is an ‘extra’ or external reality to Scripture’s meaning, that merely dwelling upon the ‘signs’ of Scripture will not lay bare. I think Scripture is embedded in a broader and thus context-forming theological ontology wherein it finds its reality, purpose, and ultimate meaning. Jesus believed Scripture had this >greater-than reality too (cf. Jn 5.39); we do well to follow our Lord.

Stay tuned for part two to this post.

[1] Karl Barth, Church Dogmatics I/2§20, 156.

Being ‘Self-Interpreted’ by the Living Word of God: On Theological Exegesis as Participation

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Theological exegesis goes hand in hand with what some have called ‘participatory exegesis,’ alongside of what others have called ‘self-interpretation.’ In regard to the latter, it is important to ground ‘self’ in the reality that there is an ecstatic source to the self who presents us with the knowledge to more accurately engage in this sort of self-interpretation; of the sort that Calvin is famously known for in regard to his so called duplex cognitio Dei (twofold knowledge of God). David Congdon, once again, gives us some insight on Bultmann, and from Bultmann, in regard to the way that Bultmann conceived of theological exegesis:

Bultmann, “Das Problem einer theologischen Exegese des Neuen Testaments,” 55 (21). This early essay situates existential interpretation within the specific context of a theological interpretation of Scripture. Participatory exegesis is uniquely demanded by the Bible. According to Bultmann, the biblical text is marked by an “existential liveliness” (existentielle Lebendigkeit), and thus the interpreter must be “inwardly alive” (innerlich lebendig), that is to say, “ready to let the text speak as an authority. . . .” In this early writing Bultmann describes a genuinely participatory exegesis as one in which an existentially concerned interpreter encounters the existential vitality and power of the text. This encounter occurs when the exegete confronts the claim of the text upon her, that is, when the text is no longer a historical object but becomes the occasion for her “self-interpretation.” Self-interpretation occurs when the exegete “hears the word of the text as a word” that demands a decision within her concrete situation: “The word, which enters anew into her situation, confronts the exegete with a decision, and thereby the word becomes for her an event. . . .” The question of self-interpretation, of self-understanding, is finally a question of our obedience to the authority of the biblical word.[1]

Even for non-Bultmannians (such as myself) this ought to be a good word for any Christian to hear. The ancient Christians approached Holy Scripture in the way, at least in spirit, that Bultmann underscores. The text isn’t a modern specimen ready to be analyzed, but a living Word presenting itself as gift to be interacted with and submitted to in filial attachment. This is the sense I draw from Bultmann’s teaching; i.e. that when we, personally, or collectively as a people engage with the text in the fellowship of the Spirit of Christ, we are being confronted with a knowledge of ourselves that requires an action. We are being confronted with the Word who requires holiness, and a transformative motion of singular movement into the depths of God’s bosom in Christ. The Word, as we are confronted with it, afresh and anew, requires an ‘obedience’ that the Word Himself has accomplished for us in His vicarious humanity. It is this Word who we are confronted with in the text. As such, we are invited into the banqueting table of His effervescent life, and commanded to be holy as He is Holy. The text, as we participatorily interact with it, doesn’t present us with Law, but with the Evangel of Hope that since we can never really obey to the level that God requires, that He has provided that elevated level of obedience for us in His own assumption of flesh.

The Word will never leave or forsake us. We might forsake Him, but He will never forsake us. One way to ensure that we don’t forsake Him is to be enmeshed in the text of Holy Scripture; allowing its Wordly reality to transform us from our worldly structured lives, and into the strangeness of His other-worldly life of renewal, power, hope, and eternal Life. Being in the ‘biblical word’ allows for these times of refreshment to confront us over and again, daily as we take up our crosses and follow Christ. As we lose our lives we will find them in the Word, but we won’t have the fresh capacity to lose our lives unless we are confronted with the lively Word of God as disclosed in Holy Scripture. It is in this existential complex that we come to have a genuine knowledge of ourselves; that is, as we are interpreted by the living Word through the fire of the Holy Spirit’s breath as that is pressed into our lives as we sit in and under the written Word of the living God.

[1] David W. Congdon, The Mission Of Demythologizing: Rudolf Bultmann’s Dialectical Theology (Minneapolis: Fortess Press, 2015), 756-57, n.150.

The ‘Community of Faith’ or Tradition of the Church as the Presupposition of Theological Exegesis

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Bultmann and Church Tradition, or the so called Great Tradition don’t seem to go together; indeed, most might think this represents an oxymoron par excellence. But this would be wrong thinking, according to David Congdon. Bultmann and Theological Exegesis, on the other hand, go together quite well; maybe not under the conditions that many ‘conservatives’ think theological exegesis. Nonetheless, Bultmann offers a theological exegetical program, in my view, and in principle that I think is laudable. I think it laudable because Bultmann, like Barth in this area!, operates from a methodological anti-natural theology mode. This is laudable, I think, because natural theology, in any form, in my view, is unlaudable. This does not mean I follow Bultmann in every step; indeed, I think he oversteps when it comes to the way he attempts to erase any form of natural theology. But I think his aim is laudable; even if he might over-existentialize things in his attempt to radicalize a non-natural theology approach.

The above noted I want to share from Congdon on Bultmann with reference to Bultmann’s sense of an anti-natural theology theological exegesis, and how that fits into the Great Tradition. This is actually an encouraging development for me, because it reflects something that I thought represented a severe weakness; not only in Bultmann, but in Barth and after Barth theological endeavor. That is, I’ve had a concern that the Tradition was so glossed by that any sense of catholicity might be lost; if not with Barth, at least with Bultmann. Bruce McCormack has corrected this misunderstanding of Barth’s theology (in his book Orthodox and Modern), and now I think Congdon helps to overcome the same misunderstanding with Bultmann.

Neither one of these virtuosos has ‘left the faith,’ as some would have us think; indeed most conservatives would have us think. Au contraire, they simply attempted to self-consciously translate the faith under the modern conditions within which they lived. Some fear, obviously, that the modern period is a lost cause, thus the attempt to repristinate or “retrieve” the past; as if that could be done via some sort of DeLorean that transports the exegete into a vacuous pre-modern mindset. The reality is that we are modern people. This does not mean we can’t or shouldn’t be critically minded modern people. But then I have to ask: By what means are we to be critical? It seems to me that the means God has supplied is the kerygmatic event itself (Bultmann); the one that apocalyptically breaks-in upon us and disrupts our locatedness from a location that is above over against and yet with our belowness (Barth). The Gospel Hisself gives us the critical way for negotiating the fall-out produced not just by modernity, but pre-modernity just the same. This is why speaking of (and thus from) God by an analogy of faith rather than being is so central to the theological exegesis of both Barth and Bultmann. We, according to them, cannot speak a right word of God apart from God first speaking Himself to us in the event of faith that we encounter afresh and anew by the Spirit’s confrontation of us in and through the Yes, No, and Amen of God in Jesus Christ.

With the aforementioned noted, let’s hear from Congdon on Bultmann and theological exegesis:

“all human speaking of God outside of faith speaks not of God but of the devil.” [Bultmann]

Similarly, in 1925 Bultmann declares that New Testament exegesis is distinct from secular exegesis in that the exegete of the New Testament confronts the text’s disruptive claim that “people do not have their existence at their disposal in such a way that they could pose the question of existence [Existenzfrage] to themselves and possess the possibility of free action; all of that is given only to faith.” Theological exegesis requires not just any questioning of existence but only a faithful or believing questioning: “A valid questioning of the text can only be a believing one, i.e., a questioning grounded in obedience to the authority of scripture.” Yet this faithful questioning would seem to beg the question, for its presupposition (viz., faith) is also the goal. The circularity of the exegetical task would therefore seem to be a serious problem. If one can only hear the word of the text in light of the questionableness of existence, and if that questionableness is only given in the word of the text, how is one able to hear and respond to the kerygma? Bultmann’s answer might come as a surprise to those who see him as an advocate of a purely individual and isolated act of interpretation. He says that the “concrete situation” for exegesis of the New Testament is “the tradition of the church of the word.” As the interpreter, I cannot stand outside my historical context, but in that “I stand in my existence in the tradition of the word there is a readiness for faithful questioning.” In a rather remarkable move, given his reputation, Bultmann actually makes the community of faith the true presupposition for the interpretation of scripture. Indeed, we can even say that for Bultmann the tradition of the church is the necessary preunderstanding for the hearing of God’s word. Tradition, in fact, funds demythologizing.[1]

This is significant towards developing a self-critical hermeneutic that is grounded not in a self-postulated nature, but a God-given Grace understood by a relation of faith that is concretely grounded in the mediating humanity of Jesus Christ. Bultmann’s approach operates from an existentialist posture, but one that I think sees God’s existence preceding our essence; which would be to flip a secular or “modern” understanding of existentialist philosophy on its head (which is to collapse God’s existence into ours, and posit our self-existence as a prius to our essence — which we then have the ability to shape whatever which way we want). If our existence, and thus our “essence” is preceded by God’s, if God’s Yes for us in Christ circumscribes our No to God, then we have graciously been given the capacity to operate in and from God’s Yes; a Yes which is situated in the faith of Christ for us. This is the basis whereby the modern, pre-modern, or even the antediluvian can be critical of their own particularity and operate as if their historical location is a gift of God and not a burden to be shirked off.

If the Gospel if the Power of God, if it has the capacity to transcend the scandal of particularity, even while accommodating to it, this should be of great encouragement to each and every one of us. We don’t have to demonize one period of history in order to get back to a pure or sanitized period wherein the Gospel supposedly has its greatest capacity for a purist expression. No. The Gospel has this purity no matter what period the human agent is enmeshed within. This means that the Gospel has the lassitude to reach into every time and place and shape it from its other-worldly reality, while at the same time working within the time and place it reaches into. This, to me, is a better way for conceiving of a framework for thinking theological exegesis. It is one that privileges not a period of history, but the period of God’s life that He has and does mediate to us through a relation or analogy of faith in and of Christ.

Church tradition, for Bultmann, according to Congdon, operates as a framework of living faith wherein as Christians today, we have a witness-base to understand the ways that God has faithfully shown up in and throughout the corridors of ecclesial history. The Tradition shows us how God acts moment by moment; how God circumscribes each of us, no matter what period, with the overshadowing of the Gospel. It is this long-view of God meeting the Church that shows us that it is the Power of God, or the Gospel that is central to theological exegetical process; insofar as that as conditioned, not by a pure nature, but a pure faith as that is held and given to us afresh and anew in the faith of Christ.

[1] David W. Congdon, The Mission Of Demythologizing: Rudolf Bultmann’s Dialectical Theology (Minneapolis: Fortess Press, 2015), 720-21.

The Antihermeneutical Turn of the Evangelicals: Deferring to the Authority of the Church As Regulative of Biblical Interpretation

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You don’t have to love, you don’t even have to like him; but I think David Congdon offers some valuable insights, particularly with reference to issues surrounding theological prolegomena and hermeneutics. His insights are penetrating, for my money, because he isn’t working from within but without the evangelical theological mainstream; and yet he is aware of the subculture that world is characterized by. I have my own and serious qualms with Congdon’s theological conclusions, but to constructively engage with him in spotty fashion does not commit the thinker to arrive at the place he has, respectively. With these ground clearing caveats in place, let’s engage with Congdon’s poignant critique of what he calls ‘the antihermeneutical turn.’

Hermeneutics or prolegomena (theological method) represent a very significant part of what I am about; if you hadn’t noticed. For many years as an evangelical I never realized that people weren’t just reading the Bible, as it is, straight off the page. In other words, it wasn’t until about seminary (a little prior in my later years of Bible College) that I realized the power that ‘interpretive tradition’ has for everyone! Once this sort of ‘Kantian’ lightning bolt hit me, I came to be a big believer in discerning how one’s prior theological system contributes to their biblical exegetical conclusions. In fact, one day in Reformation Theology class, when this realization hit me with passion, I raised my hand and pressed my professor on this very problem; viz. the hermeneutical problem. He simply, and at that point, wisely said: ‘that’s a good question.’ If we all have informing theologies shaping the way we read Holy Scripture, then who’s to say that my reading is more biblically faithful than that person’s? This represents the nub of the hermeneutical problem. There are differing ways to engage with it. Typically, at least among many Protestants, it is either to disengage with the problem; or if one is more disposed toward the more academic bent, it has become popular in those circles to simply refer to the rule of faith (regula fide) of the ‘Great Tradition’ of the Church to serve as regulative for how one reads Scripture. In fact, I have a Protestant friend who is just going to publication with an essay that, as I recall, premises in this very vein.

Congdon identifies the genealogy of the antihermeneutical problem in a lengthy footnote taken from his big tome on Bultmann. I want to share what he communicates therein, and then engage further with what I take some of the implications of his genealogy (and critique) to be. He writes:

The history of this “turn” is closely connected with the legacy of Bultmann. In the 1970s the academic fascination with Bultmann’s theology came crashing to a halt. There are two equally valid explanations for this. On the theological “left” Bultmann was superseded by theologies (represented especially by those of Jürgen Moltmann and Dorothee Sölle) that relocated the hermeneutical problem within sociopolitical praxis. On the theological “right” Bultmann was superseded by two interconnected movements, what we might call ecumenical ecclesiocentrism and antihermeneutical postliberalism. The ecclesiocentric revolution was initiated by the Second Vatican Council (1962–1965) and gave rise to what has become known as communio ecclesiology. Even many of those who rejected this specific ecclesiology nevertheless embraced the ecumenical insight that there is a common ecclesial-doctrinal substance beneath its contemporary permutations, namely, the shared Nicene orthodox faith. For our purposes the key aspects of this movement have been (a) the identification of the church qua corporate body as the primary and authoritative reader of scripture and (b) the identification of the church’s orthodox tradition as the criterion for the reading of Scripture.

Ecumenical ecclesiocentrism, in all its various forms, is closely related to the second movement that contributed even more significantly to the overthrow of the Marburg school’s dominance in the theological academy. What I have called antihermeneutical postliberalism names the turn away from the hermeneutical problem to the plain text of the Bible. Many of the leaders in postliberalism, such as Robert Jenson and George Lindbeck, were also leaders in the ecumenical movement. As with the ecclesiocentric turn, the antihermeneutical turn is notable for the way it came to be embraced by North American evangelicals. While evangelicals had their own concerns, they were nevertheless involved in the surge of interest in biblical interpretation and authority that was taking place more generally; in response to postliberalism many evangelicals (e.g., Roger Olson and Kevin Vanhoozer) developed their own postconservative alternative. The following are some key dates: in 1970, Brevard Childs published Biblical Theology in Crisis; in 1974, Hans Frei’s Eclipse of Biblical Narrative appeared; in 1975, David Kelsey’s The Use of Scripture in Recent Theology; in 1976, Carl F. Henry’s six-volume God, Revelation and Authority; also in 1976, Harold Lindsell’s The Battle for the Bible; in 1978, the “Chicago Statement on Biblical Inerrancy”; and in 1980, David Steinmetz’s seminal article, “The Superiority of Pre-Critical Exegesis.” These early developments continue today in the form of so-called “theological interpretation of scripture,” which has become a joint movement of both mainline postliberals and evangelical postconservatives. The cumulative effect of this intense interest in scripture has been, at least in many circles, the overthrow of critical hermeneutical inquiry—the Sachkritik approach advocated by Bultmann—in the theological academy. This is what I mean by “antihermeneutical.” To be sure, many postliberals and evangelicals show a profound grasp of the hermeneutical problem, but they respond to this problem by neutralizing it via recourse to the church and its tradition. Today many of those who were once enthralled with historical-critical methods are advocating the use of the regula fidei as the norm for exegesis. Whether these developments are to be welcomed is another matter entirely.[1]

What resonates greatly with me are the folks David lists as being formative for the evangelical surging into the antihermeneutical problem. In other words, in my evangelical training, almost every single person he lists, whether postliberal or conservative, figured greatly in my education. Towards the end of that in my undergrad days, I began to discern and sense some of the problems associated with the way these teachers were seemingly attempting to gloss over the hermeneutical problem; mostly by deferring it.

I want to suggest, along with Congdon, that this antihermeneutical mode has only become that much more acute over the last two decades. There has been a doubling-down by evangelicals, in particular, to abandon the historical-critical method of biblical engagement, for the rule of faith and precritical biblical exegetical method. There typically is very little argument given for this move, except for demonizing the whole modern period of thought; and it is now just assumed that return back to the past is the way forward for the development of evangelical theology and bible reading practices. So, the evangelical response, is to throw themselves in with the high Church, and defer to its authority for arriving at the most faithful exegetical and theological conclusions the Christian can ostensibly arrive at.

This doesn’t sit well with me; indeed, my whole project, my whole blogging career might be my attempt to engage with this problem at some level. With many evangelicals, and others, I have issues with the modern historical-critical reading of Scripture; but I equally have problems with the retrieval movement currently underway in the evangelical sector. The former, in my view, is simply a deferment to the authority of the individual (even collectively), and the latter a deferment to the authority of the “Church.” Neither of these options honestly engage with the ‘problem,’ they simply kick the can back to what they deem as established authorities as those have taken form in the history, one way or the other. But you see how this only reinforces the problem, right? We are deciding who has the authority to tell us what the text means; yet all this then becomes is a self-projecting project of ‘my’ or ‘our’ authority to defer to someone else’s. The loop never has any other beginning but the human agent; even as that is constituted by the institutional Enlightenment or the institutional Church. Indeed, this is what Feuerbach was so critical of: the issue of self-projection and the circular nature that entails.

Congdon’s denouement is a turn into missiological theory, and Bultmann’s contribution to and development of that in his own method. My denouement is to turn to dialogical and dialectical theology, primarily that of Barth’s and Torrance’s. I am not totally sure how to highlight the distinction between my alternative and David’s, other than to say that ecclesial grammar has greater play for me than it does, I think, for Congdon. Congdon is arguing for a greater convergence between Barth and Bultmann than many of the Bultmannians have wanted there to be; and following Congdon’s line, I think there probably is. But in my view, Bultmann still gives too much place to the human agent, and an existentialism devoid of real groundedness in history, than does Barth. Barth still has an ‘existential’ component, particularly as that is grounded in his analogy of faith/relation (see Jüngel), but he still moves and breathes within the contours set out by the Nicene grammar that Bultmann seemingly moves beyond; and Congdon certainly moves beyond.

What is the real conclusion here?: I need to write more on dialogical and dialectical theology in such a way that the distinction I am noting between myself and Congdon gains greater traction with understanding. My approach to biblical studies is grounded in ‘encounter’ that is continuous and ongoing with the living Christ. In this sense, there is an aspect of existentialism present. But I would argue that the “authority” is not from ‘my side’ but in the One who is encountering me as Lord. How this gets turned into a normative hermeneutic that has some sort of salience between me and others, without reducing to an absolute subjectivism, is fodder for another post. But I think there is a way forward that takes Congdon’s points seriously, without committing oneself to a Bultmannian roadmap. More to come.

[1] David W. Congdon, The Mission Of Demythologizing: Rudolf Bultmann’s Dialectical Theology (Minneapolis: Fortess Press, 2015), 545-46 n. 95.

The Early Church Read Holy Scripture In A Principled Christ Concentrated Way, So Should We

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39 You search the Scriptures because you think that in them you have eternal life; and it is they that bear witness about me, –John 5:39

25 And he said to them, “O foolish ones, and slow of heart to believe all that the prophets have spoken!26 Was it not necessary that the Christ should suffer these things and enter into his glory?” 27 And beginning with Moses and all the Prophets, he interpreted to them in all the Scriptures the things concerning himself. –Luke 24:25-27

The early Christians took these passages to heart. They believed that the Apostolic hermeneutic, the one that followed the teaching of Jesus himself, like we find in the passages mentioned, was a deeply Christ concentrated one. It is this approach that Martin Luther and John Calvin took to heart; in their respective ways. Karl Barth and Thomas Torrance et al. in the modern period have likewise taken this hermeneutic to heart. When Christians take a Christ conditioned hermeneutic seriously it does things to the way they read Holy Scripture. It takes the focus off of me-centeredness, or nation-centeredness (like we get in Dispensationalism), and instead places the primacy of focus on the primacy of Jesus Christ; as if God’s plan was to reveal Himself from the very beginning (cf. Gen 1:1; 3:15 etc.). JND Kelly comments on how this sort of hermeneutic took hold early for the Patristic Fathers of the Christian Church:

The inspiration of Scripture being taken for granted, the Church had to work out the methods of exegesis to be employed in interpreting it. The fundamental issue here, as was very soon perceived, was to determine the precise relation of the Old Testament and the New, or rather (since the earliest stage there was no specifically Christian canon), to the revelation of which the apostles were witnesses. As has already been mentioned, the solution arrived at consisted in treating the Old Testament as a book which, if it were read with unclouded eyes, would be seen to be Christian through and through. In adopting this attitude Christian theologians and teachers were merely following the example of the apostles and evangelists, and indeed of the Lord Himself. It is evident from every page of the gospel records that the incarnate Christ freely took up, applied to Himself and His mission, and in so doing reinterpreted, the key-ideas of the Messiah, the Suffering Servant, the Kingdom of God, etc., which He found ready to hand in the faith of Israel. In harmony with this the essence of the apostolic message was the proclamation that in the manifestation, ministry, passion, resurrection and ascension of the Lord, and in the subsequent outpouring of the Spirit, the ancient prophecies had been fulfilled. Whether we look to the fragments of primitive preaching embedded in Acts, or to St. Paul’s argumentation with his correspondents, or to the elaborate thesis expounded in Hebrews, or to the framework of the evangelists’ narratives, we are invariably brought face to face with the assumption that the whole pattern of the Christian revelation, unique and fresh though it is, is ‘according to the Scriptures’. In this connexion St. Luke’s story of the two disciples on the road to Emmaus is highly instructive, for it presents a vivid picture of the primitive Church’s conviction that all the events of Christ’s earthly career, together with their profound redemptive implications, are to be understood as the fulfilment of what was written about Him ‘in the law of Moses, and in the prophets and in the psalms’, and that the ultimate warrant for this conviction was His own express authorization.[1]

Kelly helps summarize the early Christ concentrated way of interpreting Scripture. It was the supposition that Holy Scripture, both Old and New Testaments were thoroughly about Jesus and His fulfillment of the promises made by the Old Testament Prophets. As a result of ‘critical’ biblical studies, and the naturalistic assumptions that attend this sort of Enlightenment project, this Christ-centered exegetical approach was lost to things like History of Religions, and reading the Bible in a de-confessionalized way. Ironically, this is the sort of mode that has not only produced things like the Jesus Quest, and Rudolf Bultmann, but indeed, it has just as readily produced hermeneutical approaches like we see in Dispensationalism (an approach that focuses on the nation of Israel as the key to biblical prophecy rather than Jesus Christ).

There are clearly various ways to be Christ-concentrated in approach. But it is in keeping, I’d argue, with the Dominical teaching, with the Apostolic witness, and the early Church Fathers to see Jesus in every nook and cranny of the text of Holy Writ. If we are going to err, let us err in this direction rather than in the alternative directions which read the confessional and canonical and covenantal Jesus out of the text, only to displace Him with their own culturally-conditioned lenses that end up looking like the collective-cultural-self.

[1] J.N.D. Kelly, Early Christian Doctrines, Revised Edition (New York, NY: HarperSanFrancisco, 1978), 64-5.

The Inner-Theo-Logic of Holy Scripture: A Protestant Reflection

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I wanted to offer a very brief reflection on: Inner-Theo-Logic and how that functions in the process of thinking ‘orthodox’ thoughts vis-à-vis biblical interpretation; within the bounds of the Protestant understanding of the ‘Scripture Principle.’ When we think about the nature of Scripture, by way of its compositional form, what we quickly realize is that in every case it is occasional. Think about the New Testament, for example, each and everyone of the ‘books’ that make up the NT has an historical audience and context and occasion in mind, an occasion that prompted the writing of the book (e.g. epistle, etc.). The same can be said of the Old Testament; each of the books has a particular context and occasion that prompted its writing within the Providential overture of God. Ultimately we might want to think of the whole canon, ‘canonically,’ and allow its final shape to become the ultimate occasion (ultimate with an eschatological relativization) which we even today come to read it within. But the basic point I want to alert us to is that the Bible is not giving us a Systematic Theology or Christian Dogmatic; yet, this does not mean that the Bible does not have all the facets embedded within it that give us the building blocks for developing systematic theologies and Christian Dogmatics. Indeed it is these building blocks that entail what I am referring to as Scripture’s ‘inner-theo-logic.’ But what am I getting at? This: each of the biblical authors had a theological context they were writing from; often as Prophets and Apostles with brand-new Revelation directly from God. Yet when they wrote they didn’t always seem to grasp just exactly how deeply profound their writing was (and is); in regard to the theology they were nascently presuming upon even if they didn’t fully realize it, or get its implications. Even so, that’s exactly what was going on; they were operating out of cultic and ecclesial conditions, conditions shaped directly by the Prophets and Apostles themselves, that supplied them with the ability to write what they did. And they were able to write the way they did, typically in very assertive ways about who God is and what God was and is about, because they were presupposing off of Revealed realities that they’d come to know through intimate encounter with this living God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob come in Jesus Christ.

If the above is the case I find it terribly interesting that there are traditions in the Christian church who believe that they have the best corner on identifying and explicating what in fact this ‘unspoken’ inner-theo-logic must in fact be in order for the text of Holy Writ to make the claims, and teach the things that it does. So we have the ‘outer-clarity’ of the text, but then its ‘inner-clarity’; this is the fairly standard way for Protestants to parse a way towards Scripture. They would typically relate the outer-clarity to the occasional prima facie level of the text, and the inner-clarity would be referred to, again, what I have called the inner-theo-logical reality of the text. But this is what I find extremely strange: Why is it that some traditions (and they in fact are the traditions they are because they believe they have come to have a better or the best corner on Scripture’s inner-theo-logical reality) believe that they alone maintain the orthodox understanding of what the inner-theo-logic is, and by this standard they come to conclude that others either have a heterodox or even heretical grasp of what the inner-theo-logic of Scripture is? Often, one tradition against another will label or symbolize the ‘other’ tradition (from theirs) with names like ‘Barthianism’, NeoOrthodoxy, Arminianism, Calvinism, Lutheranism, Thomism, Nominalism, Neo-Platonism, Kantianism, Hegelianism, et al. And based upon a history of development, from within their tradition, they will look out at these other traditions (from theirs) and simply label the development of the inner-theo-logic that makes up these other tradition’s grasp of Scripture’s reality as sub-standard and even anti-thetical to the Gospel (in certain instances).

What I would like to call folks to is a position and attitude of prudence. In other words, I think there should be a sort of moratorium on superficially drawing off of ‘my’ tradition’s anathematization of ‘other’ traditions, simply because that’s part of my tradition, and instead look deeper at the inner-theo-logic itself, at an ideational level, and critically engage with the ideas themselves. We need to get past the labels, and see if in fact there might well be merit to theological ideas, maybe even just some fruit bearing constructively retrievable merit, that we shouldn’t simply cast off because that’s what my tradition says I should do (in a historical sense of continuity with my tradition). All I’m saying is that as Christians it would do us well to operate constructively and recognize that there is fruit in the various strands ‘out there’ that we might call the inner-theo-logic or tradition within the inner-workings of Scripture’s witness itself; the inner-workings that make the tradition what it is. But we need to ask ourselves what is the most regulative feature we might appeal to, in the domain of theological reality, that might give us the best chance at identifying fruitful lines in the various formations in the development of the inner-theo-logic, and on the other hand might help us to see what needs to be discarded.

Some Thoughts on the Bible and Knowledge of God: Prompted By an OnScript Podcast with The Bible Project Founders

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A thought occurred to me as I was listening to the OnScript podcast today, an episode that featured two former college-mates of mine, Tim Mackie and Jonathan Collins (of The Bible Project), the thought was: can God be conceived of strictly from Scripture? In other words, can God be conceived of apart from his reception in and from Scripture as that has been developed through the centuries in the Christian church (all orthodox traditions)? Further, can a literary lens alone be the lens for giving us the most faithful account of who God is in Scripture as Scripture attests to him?

It is a very modern way to think God from Scripture only (de nuda Scriptura), and yet this seems to be the way that so many evangelicals are introduced to; and in the name of sola Scriptura no less. I am not suggesting that literary or Bible as literature approaches have zero value, but I am suggesting that for the Christian church an accurate conception of God has always come with deep theological reflection; and a subsequently produced theological grammar (the ecumenical councils are case in point). Further, I am not suggesting that The Bible Project or On Script podcasts suffer from this solo Scriptura approach, per se, but that the discipline they operate in and from indeed does (as that is sourced in history of religions text-critical disciplines as shaped by Enlightenment innovation).

What this points up for me, once again, is the high importance of theological-exegesis (or theological interpretation of Scripture TIS). In other words, I contend that Christians have no context for knowing who God is simply by referral to Scripture alone; there is a reception of knowledge bequeathed to the churches, in regard to who God is, that dogmatically precedes Scripture. And this points up further attending to the need for understanding what Scripture actually is in the first place; in other words: what is Scripture’s ontology (or ‘being’) relative to its place before God? Does Scripture have a theological location in God’s economy? And if it does what impact does that have on its reception, hermeneutic, and praxis in the churches? Can we just presume on a sort of universal ‘preunderstanding’ or ‘pre-orthodoxy’ in regard to who God is, and how we have knowledge of God, can we simply presume upon an unstated assumption that ‘faithful orthodox’ Christians just have this conglomerate knowledge of God such that we simply get straight to the Bible without attending to that first?

My contention is that Scripture has an ontology (following John Webster in his book Holy Scripture: A Dogmatic Sketch), and that Scripture ultimately has no illuminative meaning for the Christian apart from intentionally acknowledging that. That is, that Holy Scripture, in order for it to be received as ‘Holy’ and thus not just as ‘literature,’ must be fully cognizant of Scripture’s givenness and reality before God. Without this ground my sense is that an approach to Scripture based upon a vague acknowledgement of “well yeah, we’re all Christians here, we all affirm that Scripture is God given and that God is Triune” will make a subsequent engagement with Scripture, based upon this sort of thin thinking, end up providing us with a knowledge of God that might yield what the Bible as literature approach to the Bible will produce for us. It might, by coincidence, produced characteristics about God that are univocal with the God understood as orthodox by the rule of faith produced in the grammar of the creeds; but most likely it will produce knowledge of God that produces emphases that are more concordant with the literary critic’s situadedness and cultural location. Do you see what I’m getting at here? I’m looking for a ‘control’ a regula fidei (‘rule of faith’) that has catholic (universal) reach as we consider who God is for the 21st century church. A control that is in the foreground, not the background.

Do I think Tim Mackie, Jonathan Collins, the OnScript crew repudiate the sort of theological import I am trying to bring to the way a knowledge of God is conceived vis-à-vis the Bible? No. But the discipline they work from actually does. This is the quagmire evangelicals have found themselves ensconced within. A piety that sincerely loves Jesus, but a bibliology and subsequent hermeneutic that largely takes its cues from a Biblical Studies discipline that pretty much has nothing to do with confessional reality or affirmation in the true and living God; this is what that discipline believes makes their method ‘critical.’ Sure, you can be an orthodox Christian and work in the field of Biblical Studies, but unfortunately such a person will have to work over-time to make an attempt to bring their work into discussion with the confessional and catholic heritage of the Christian church.

I am very appreciative of The Bible Project. I was trained by the same professor that Tim Mackie and Jonathan Collins were at Multnomah Bible College. I taught the same ‘lab’ in Bible Study Methods under the aegis of this professor that Mackie did. I used Mackie’s notes to help me get ideas when I taught this lab. What The Bible Project represents is just a continuation and amplification of what we were all taught by this particular professor. I learned much about how to study the Bible canonically and inductively through this training; not to mention literarily. But as an end in itself this is not sufficient. The Bible has an ontology, and it is given that ontology by God in Christ and the economy shed abroad in that reality; a reality accommodated by God for us. Learning how to engage with Scripture “critically” though, in my book, means that we first learn how to dialogue with God “critically.” That we recognize that God comes before Scripture and that in Christ Scripture has its telos and meaning. In the field of Biblical Studies its practitioners are often at pains to find THE theme of canonical Scripture; or the theme for each book of the Bible; or what have you. If we start with a Dogmatic and theological basis for Scripture’s ontology we will see that Scripture is best situated, and necessarily situated in a doctrine of creation/recreation, within which its meaning is given (its res). If, in general, creation’s meaning has always already been grounded in Jesus Christ, then how much more so is Scripture’s as a book inscribed within and under the pressures of creaturely media; under the pressure of God’s givenness for us in Jesus Christ?

These are some concerns off the top I have. Maybe they aren’t yours, or you think I’m overstating. I don’t think I’m overstating though. What do you think?     

The ‘Good’ of Tradition; The Impossibility of Reading Scripture Without Theology

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What I realized in seminary while immersed in historical theology and new testament studies was that doing theological exegesis and engaging with the tradition of the church is an inescapable reality; even for those who claim to be doing otherwise. The fact that we are human, extended out into space and time located on a continuum conditioned by the forces of intellectual and theological history is indisputable. As such it is dangerous and irresponsible to pretend like we can just read the Bible as if we are John Locke’s tabula rasa being stimulated by the text alone; thus forming notions of God in Christ as if abstract monads, incurved selves with no relation to other selves along a continuum of growth and development as that has taken place in the church and in socio-cultural-ideational history in general. In other words nobody, not even so called text-critical biblical scholars read the Bible outwith tradition; and that’s okay!

Stephen Holmes in his little book Listening to the Past: The Place of Tradition in Theology offers a wonderful and precise sketch of the reality of tradition/theology vis-à-vis the reading of Holy Scripture. I first read his book (which I will be quoting from) in 2005, just two years after I graduated from seminary. His first two chapters helped solidify my thoughts in this area, thoughts that had been given birth even as early as my time in undergrad (bible college); and that developed with much more awareness because of my time spent in historical theology during seminary. Because I think this continues to be a reality that I’d say most free church evangelicals, in the pews, don’t really have a handle on; because this continues to be a reality that many scholars who have gone the route of ‘biblical studies’ don’t really have a handle on; I think it is important for me to reiterate this again (and again, and again).[1] With this in mind let me share some of Holmes’ thinking in this direction; he will problematize some of the facile manner I have presented some of this in as well (for purposes of ease and time I am going to offer pictures of the text I want to present; hopefully that is not too cumbersome for you the reader):

.[2]

We could say much more, but hopefully the weight, indeed the pressure from what is shared is felt. Indeed, as Holmes notes, an unmediated access to the text is always something that we are struggling towards, in the sense that we are engaging with the actual content and material reality of the text itself; viz. Jesus Christ. But even as we are constantly in this spiraling and toilsome task, even as we attempt to get as close as possible to the inner-reality of the text in Christ; the grammar we will use to even speak of Christ comes in mediated form through the Niceno-Constantinopolitano-Chalcedono verbiage developed in the ecumenical church councils. This does not lessen the reality of the living voice of God we encounter in Scripture, it only is to admit to the reality that God is constantly the One who must lower himself to us in Christ by the Spirit and encounter us before we can encounter him in and through all the shrouded contours of our own machinations. But this is a hopeful reality; i.e. we come to encounter Christ through the tradition as that impinges upon our interpretive capacities as we come to the text. The text becomes the instrument through which our traditions themselves constantly take shape as we dialogically encounter the risen Christ by the Spirit upon each page turned of the holy ink. In other words, it is this hope, our hope that God is graciously willing to speak to us afresh and anew in our baby talk so that we might genuinely know him and make him known. It is in this dialectical or prayerful process of reading Scripture that the categories of the always reforming and developing tradition of the church have the ability to transmute into a reality that brings us closer and closer to a more fulsome knowledge of him. I wonder if this makes sense to you; I wonder if it makes sense to me (it does!)?

I hope people can appreciate not just the negative aspects of tradition, but more importantly the positive; indeed the inevitable reality of tradition/theological development. It’s a natural reality of being creatures in the theater of God’s glory that is within the domain of his living Word in Jesus Christ. On the analogy of the incarnation, by the overshadowing power of the Holy Spirit, in the new creation of Jesus Christ’s vicarious humanity, as we walk by faith not by sight, we have been given eyes to see and ears to hear the living voice of God (viva vox Dei); tradition is simply the churchly expression of that encounter. What is important is to remember that this encounter is something that happens afresh and anew as we come to trembling to him, yet in boldness, through the ‘spectacles’ of his written Word.

This is a lively and exciting topic. We can say more, of course. Hopefully, if nothing else, what has come through is that not a single soul can approach Holy Scripture without doing so through various iterations of tradition and theological development. This is not a bad thing, but a good thing. In order to understand this as a good thing the bible reader, the Christian must have a good grasp on the reality that a theological ontology has upon a theological/Christological conditioned epistemology (and I will have to explain what I mean by that, if you don’t know, at a later time or in the comments).

 

[1] I’ve also come to realize that you never know who might be reading your blog posts.

[2] Stephen R. Holmes, Listening to the Past: The Place of Tradition in Theology (Grand Rapids, MI: Baker Academic, 2002), 6-8.

How solo Scriptura is Demonic: Conditional Immortality, Annihilationism, and a Defense of After Barth Theological Exegesis

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In this post I want to respond to a comment made in my previous post from a reader named, Phil Lueck. My last post was going to simply serve as an introduction to a larger post I had intended on writing as an argument against what is called conditionalism, conditional immortality, and often is associated with annhiliationism. I was motivated to write such a post because I had just recently
joined a group on Facebook called Re-Thinking Hell; one of its founding members is a guy named Chris Date (a Masters student at Fuller Seminary NW), and then there are others. They engage in debates (in real life and online) promoting what they think is the only viable reading of the text when it comes to ‘hell’ or ‘punishment’ texts; i.e. their conditionalism. After I’ve now had the chance to interact with them in their group, and listened to a few video interviews of Chris Date about his style of conditionalism, I’ve come to realize that they are simply advocating for a solo scriptura approach; the idea that people can read the bible, pretty much, without presuppositions and theological preunderstandings—which is horrifically dangerous. I shared a link to my previous post in that group, and one of the admins made it clear that they only wanted to hear what the Bible says about hell; they wouldn’t be that interested in getting into theological or Christian Dogmatic concerns. Oh, he was clear that he’d considered all the theological stuff (as if that’s distinct from biblical exegesis), and that he didn’t want me, really, to offer the type of post I was intent on offering. He thinks that I prioritize theology over scripture (again as if those two things can be disentangled in the neat and tidy ways he seems to think). This segues us back to Phil’s comment; let me share that, and then I will offer some response to him. If I seem defensive, it’s because I am. Here’s Phil:

Dear Bobby,

I have been reading your posts for several years and have appreciated your sand[sic], even when I have not agreed with you. While I have had a long interest in TFT and a more recent interest in Barth, I am not a Confessional Christian. I have studied church history, Christian thought and historical theology enough (M.A., Wheaton Grad School) to realize the diversity that exists within Christianity makes for significant challenges to the Reformation concept of the authority of God as it is mediated through Scripture.

Two years ago, after considerable consideration, I changed my understanding of Hell, from the traditional ECT view to CI. I have found RethinkingHell.com a useful site for that understanding. However, I do not merely believe just anything that they post. The test of truth for the evangelical believer must, in the final analysis, be Scripture. If I find a weakness in your site it is that your appeal to the truth of your theological understandings on just about any biblical text or theme seems to loyalty to Torrance and Barth.

I await you your follow of today’s post and trust that you will seek to make a greater place for the Scriptures themselves (i.e. some independent exegesis) instead just of using TFT and Barth as your support.

Blessings in Christ,

Phil Lueck

We can quickly see how Phil’s disposition fits the description I provided of those I encountered in the group: ReThinking Hell. But Phil, as does anyone who advocates for solo scriptura or de nuda scriptura (the idea that we can just read the Bible for all its worth without theological preunderstandings forming our exegetical conclusions), has a serious dilemma. The dilemma arises when Phil, or any solo scriptura advocate have to make interpretive decisions, and even translational decisions when it comes to the text of scripture; particularly when we are doing exegesis in the original languages.

Okay, so from Phil’s comment, he thinks I favor Barth and Torrance too much when I interpret scripture. But then I’m left asking: who does Phil favor; and who does the ReThinking Hell crowd favor? You see, the fact is this: theological-exegesis is something that all Christians do. Yes, those still under the spell of modernity would like to think that they can approach the text as a tabula rasa and simply allow the external stimuli and data of the text of scripture fill out the blank pages of their brain; but this just is not the case (Kant, if nothing else deconstructed that notion). Since this isn’t the case, since biblical exegesis will always already be a spiraling dialogue between scripture’s inner theo-logic and the lexical and grammatical realities of the text itself, it would do everyone really well to admit how this whole process works; and adjust their hermeneutical approaches accordingly.

Phil has to engage in the work of developing a theological-anthropology, as do those who are proponents of ReThinking Hell, in general; but as far as I can see that doesn’t even enter their minds. This is interesting, really, because the very premise of conditional immortality is grounded in how we conceive of the nature or being of humanity; i.e. when humans were created, originally, were they immortal or simply mortal awaiting immortality? In other words, the primary question, contra Chris Date, isn’t the nature of ‘eternal punishment’, as he asserts in the video interviews I’ve watched of him; but instead the issue here has to do with the nature of humanity itself. But interrogating this issue is not a matter of simply reading the text of scripture and using the analogy of scripture, comparing this scripture with that scripture in the interpretive process; no, it’s much more basic than even that. The process here is one where the interpreter must engage with the inner-logic of scripture; in other words, we mustn’t go beyond scripture, but we must dig into the depth-dimension of scripture. This is what theological-exegesis entails, and this is what ReThinking Hell proponents reject.

So they aren’t interested in me writing a post that engages this issue from a theological-exegetical approach; they want me to offer a more enlightened biblical exegetical process and conclusion based upon the type of form/redaction criticism interpretive process they’ve inherited as evangelicals. They want me to ignore confessional exegesis; they want me to ignore the history of interpretation; they want me wipe my brain clean of any other stimuli I might bring to the text, and simply offer a clean prima facie reading of the text that they themselves have ostensibly offered the church catholic.

As far as Phil’s desire to see me not rely so much on Barth and Torrance, I’m afraid he’s not appreciating the revolutionary type of thing Barth, in particular, has offered the church. Barth might be a single man, but his reworking of election/predestination (as he inherited some of that from a French school of thought), and his style of Christ concentration is nothing more than an interpretive tradition in and  of itself; as explanatory and weighty as what we get from Thomas Aquinas, John Duns Scotus, Athanasius, Augustine et al. So why would I attempt to do theological-exegesis from outside of a theological tradition that I think provides the greatest explanatory power when we come to consider some very basic realities as we get into engaging with the inner-logic of the text of scripture? I’m wondering what interpretive tradition informs Phil’s exegesis of the biblical text? Or what about Chris Date of ReThinking Hell? He claims to be a Calvinist, a classically styled Calvinist; which of course means his interpretive tradition comes mediated through Aristotle, Thomas Aquinas, and Augustine; to one degree or another. This is the type of non-criticalness that a commitment to a solo scriptura can foster; it can cause someone like Phil to tell me to quit relying so much on Barth and Torrance, when he in the same instance is relying on his own broader theological framework and interpretive tradition, at a macro, first order level.

In light of all these developments I’m really not all that motivated to write that long post on conditional immortality anymore. Not to mention that in that group on Facebook, once I shared my post from last night it caused a few in the group to come after me. I actually de-joined the group and one of them stalked me to my page and private messaged me attempting to egg me on into further jousting and debate; that didn’t make me happy at all (it caused some unfortunate words on my part). I think I’ll let this issue die immortally for a bit, and maybe revisit it when I’ve cooled off a little. I’ll just leave with this parting shot: solo Scriptura is demonic.

 

 

Reading Scripture with Calvin and the Inevitability of Theological Exegesis for All

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The following is a post I wrote many years ago now; it’s rather short and to the point, but it’s about a very important thing that continues to remain a problem johncalvinsickbedfor many a Christian. It can be a very positive thing once the Christian Bible reader can be humble enough, and/or critical enough to come to recognize the inevitable reality that it is. What I am referring to is the reality of theological exegesis; we all do it, and it has been done ever since the Patristic beginning (meaning the theology that was developed in the so called ecumenical councils; the theology we consider orthodox today relative to the Trintarian and Christological grammar we employ as Christians). The following post broaches this topic once again, I can only hope that if you don’t realize that the way you read Scripture comes from a particular theological tradition, that in fact you will indeed come to realize that you do in fact read Scripture from a particular theological tradition[s]. Here’s what I had to say, appealing to John Calvin, back some time ago.

. . . Calvin, like the other reformers, understood that scripture could not stand without a framework of intepretation. And that framework ultimately supported his theological conclusions. This was precisely how it worked in Reformed, Lutheran and Catholic churches of the sixteenth century.[1]

I have recently been in a dialogue with a guy who clearly loves the Lord. We have been discussing the idea that God is the Gospel. This idea actually troubles this fellow, “that God is the Gospel,” he has said:

I’ve been going over this and talking it over with people. I am unwilling to say that God is the gospel. The gospel is the proclamation of the saving redemptive work of Christ. That is the way scripture defines the word “gospel”. It’s very specific. To go beyond that is to go beyond the teaching of scripture, the way scripture defines the term for us and I am unwilling to go there.

The reasons supporting the phrase “God is the gospel” presented so far are not based on exegesis of scripture, but rather on philosophical reasoning. In fact I find the reasoning to be specious. By the same reasoning one might conclude that God is the author of sin. Logic would lead us to believe that was true if we were not fenced in by the limits of scripture.

For this gentleman, the Gospel is strictly a verb, and is not a subject too — which it is. Not to digress, but to illustrate, in contemporary ways, the importance of Calvin’s own approach to scripture. That is, part of interpretation is to recognize that we are indeed interpreting. And that it is okay, and necessary, to go deep into the inner logic and implication of scriptures’ own assumptions. Calvin was aware of the fact that we all have grids of interpretation that we bring to the text, and part of this “spiraling” process of interpreting scripture is to allow scripture and Christ’s life to impose its own categories of thought upon our preconceptions.

In our case, with the fellow I mention above, if he realized that even his desire to read scripture in the way that he does (rather “woodenly”), is in fact a consequence of his prior commitment to an interpretive framework; then he would quickly realize that “his commitment” itself is not “scripture.” That his interpretive paradigm in fact — and I think this is safe to say — is resting on a certain philosophical arrangement that, unfortunately, is unbeknownst to this well intending brother in Christ.

 

[1] Bruce Gordon, Calvin, 108.