Two types of clarity

As noted earlier, I've just finished reading Mark Thompson's excellent book on the clarity of Scripture: A Clear and Present Word. Clearly (excuse the pun) this doctrine is timely and important - in a world where people claim that the Bible either can't be understood, or can be understood any way we choose, or has been misunderstood for centuries (and now we have it right!), or requires the church to understand it for us, a right and carefully thought out understanding of this topic is vital.

One thing which struck me on this reading was Luther's precise articulation of different types of clarity in Scripture. First, there is the external clarity of the Bible. "God has graciously chosen to express himself in the ordinary conventions of human language." (A Clear and Present Word, 148-9) This is what makes the comprehension and context questions of a Bible Study possible. We can translate it, read it, understand it. We can see structure in composition and rhetorical argument. It is clear because God has accommodated himself to human language (although of course its God's language to start off with!).

Secondly, however, there is as Luther describes, an internal clarity. That is, to understand the Bible as what it truly is, the revelation of God to us, which requires the Spirit of God in us. "Understanding in the true Christian sense, is more than making sense of the words on the page [...] Scripture remains God's word by which he addresses the human heart. God's clear word is made clear to believers by God." (A Clear and Present Word, 149). And this of course, is the glorious 'a ha!' moment in a Bible Study. When we hear God speaking to us through the text. When we are brought face to face with the glory of God in Christ, and respond in repentance and faith, and praise and proclamation.

Thompson on Scripture

Next Sunday (the 19th), Mark Thompson is visiting Christchurch to speak on the clarity of Scripture (details here). As a bit of pre-game warm up I thought I'd have a wander through the book of his 2005 Moore College Annual Lectures, A Clear and Present Word. How's this for a wonderful statement:

Christian doctrine is not essentially rational, mechanistic or impersonal, but is relational at its very core because God in his eternal being is relational and determines all reality. A Christian doctrine of Scripture must speak of Scripture as it is related to God, and this will of necessity draw attention to the person, work and words of Jesus Christ, the one who is genuinely and without reduction both God and human. Scripture exists by and within the purpose of God to be known by men and women, those he is determined to rescue for himself. It is properly understood as an integral part of the purposeful communicative activity of God (Clear and Present Word, 78-9).

I wonder if we can go even further, and suggest that given what Thompson has said about the nature of the Scriptures being grounded in the nature of God (relational and communicative), it is right to speak of the Bible as being not only an 'integral part of the purposeful communicative activity of God', but also an integral part of the purposeful salvific activity of God.

Of course this salvific activity would need to be understood broadly (so as to include both the softening and hardening of hearts), and one would not want to restrict God's salvific activity to the presence or articulation of the exact words of Scripture (such a view would be validly open to Barth's critique of restriction of God's sovereignty), but the Bible not only communicates what God has, is, and will do, but the message of which is effective, by the Holy Spirit, in bringing those purposes about - 'and you also were included in Christ when you heard the word of truth, the gospel of your salvation (Eph 1:13).

Responses to Thompson

Mark Thompson's piece for the ACL has generated some responses (on a NZ Anglican website) Here's an extract (and let it be said that I thoroughly disagree with this person's comment):

"...This rant from a 'learned doctor' sounds like a lecture in demonology. Not too surprising, though, as this is the off-the-cuff reflection of a disappointed and bitter re-asserter, who wants the Church to go back to the first century of the Church environment..."