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).

Calvin on Scripture

This Sunday, as I'm sure you know, is Bible Sunday. Being the good liturgical, lectionarical Anglican that I am, I'm going to preach on the Scriptures - what they are, what they do, etc., all, funnily enough, grounded in an exposition of 2 Timothy 3:14-4:4, but preceded by a (very) brief summary of how the Bible speaks of itself and how Christians throughout time have spoken of the Bible. In looking over the giants of church history I came across this quote from Calvin:

[speaking of 2 Tim 3:16] ... we owe to the Scripture the same reverence as we owe to God, since it has its only source in Him and has nothing of human origin mixed with it. (Calvin's Commentaries on the New Testament, 1 and 2 Timothy)

Now don't get me wrong, I'm a BIG fan of Johnny C. But, I think here he oversteps the mark. It's clear what he's trying to say - that what the Bible says God says, and that it is his word, not mans. But he makes absolute what the Bible leaves slightly more open. We don't venerate the book - for all the attacks on evangelicals of bibliolotry I've never seen anyone treat the Bible like it were God. In fact, I've seen liberals treat their (physical) bibles with far more care than evangelicals (primarily because they leave it in pristine condition on the shelf, whereas evangelicals get it out and use it). I don't revere my UltraThin (ironic, eh) Reference Edition NIV Holy Bible (all the way from Nashville, Tennessee) in the same way I revere my risen Lord. I don't fall flat on my face when I see my Bible in the same way that I'm sure I'm going to fall flat on my face when I meet Jesus.

And I'm glad that, contra Calvin, my Bible does have something of its human origin mixed in. Not that I think that some words are Gods and some aren't, of course not. All Scripture is exhaled by God. But he did it through normal men. He breathed out his word through Peter who, red-necked clown that he was, got so scared he thought it would be a good idea to pitch tents for the transfigured Lord and his buddies. Who in a fit of terrified insanity denied Jesus. But whom Jesus forgave, and breathed out his Spirit on, and through whom Jesus was pleased to have his gospel boldly proclaimed. He breathed out his word through Paul who got depressed and angry and sad, who modelled a self-giving, self-denying ministry both through what he did and how he wrote.

I understand what Calvin has said, and what he wants to protect. And I'm with him. But he, it seems, goes to far. What the Bible says, God says. But the Bible is not God. Everything that the Bible says is from God, breathed out by him. But he breathed it out through my brothers, who loved him and served him, and at times failed, but always looked to their Saviour for forgiveness.

Treating the Bible Properly

Blomberg has been interviewed over at Between Two Worlds. One of the questions asked of him was:

Are there certain mistaken hermeneutical presuppositions made by conservative evangelicals that play into the hands of liberal critics?

Absolutely. And one of them follows directly from the last part of my answer to your last question. The approach, famously supported back in 1976 by Harold Lindsell in his Battle for the Bible (Zondervan), that it is an all-or-nothing approach to Scripture that we must hold, is both profoundly mistaken and deeply dangerous. No historian worth his or her salt functions that way. I personally believe that if inerrancy means “without error according to what most people in a given culture would have called an error” then the biblical books are inerrant in view of the standards of the cultures in which they were written. But, despite inerrancy being the touchstone of the largely American organization called the Evangelical Theological Society, there are countless evangelicals in the States and especially in other parts of the world who hold that the Scriptures are inspired and authoritative, even if not inerrant, and they are not sliding down any slippery slope of any kind. I can’t help but wonder if inerrantist evangelicals making inerrancy the watershed for so much has not, unintentionally, contributed to pilgrimages like Ehrman’s. Once someone finds one apparent mistake or contradiction that they cannot resolve, then they believe the Lindsells of the world and figure they have to chuck it all. What a tragedy!

A slightly different but related issue being perennially discussed here in NZ is the place of the whole Scriptures in our theological and ethical formation. For example:

Thankyou for your response to my question - as to whether there is any part of Scripture you could no longer support (or believe in). Indeed, you have provided just a few items which might embarrass you to have to subscribe to in today's world. However, I particularly noted your reference to 'development in certain ways in Scripture' that might just support my contention that 'not all of Scripture as it is presented to us is to be relied upon for guidance in today's world'.

I repeat your third paragraph here:

(3)Clearly we find development in certain ways in Scripture. The
punishments prescribed for the community to enact in Leviticus are
remitted by the teaching and example of Jesus. The question of
whether we are authorised to continue such development beyond
Scripture (e.g. on the basis of the Johannine understanding that the
Holy Spirit will lead us into all truth) is a large one. The Roman
Catholic church offers one answer, the Pentecostal church another,
and the liberal wing of the Anglican church yet another. Speaking as an evangelical who has consciously refrained from becoming RC, or Pentecostal or a liberal Anglican I continue to work theologically on the basis of being grounded in Scripture - the whole of Scripture.

You talk here about 'The punishments prescribed for the community to enact in Leviticus are remitted by the teaching and example of Jesus'. Precisely! The moral and theological concepts of Jesus are not always those of the Old Testament. Nor, I suspect, are some of the teachings Paul in line with what Jesus himself might have taught. In other words, the Dominical teaching is, par excellence, the teaching that is commended to the Church as primary, in its engagement with the world on matters of theology, orthodoxy and orthopraxy.

With regard to your statement in your note (i), you infer, that to say Jesus said nothing about homosexuality is 'a false statement'. That may be your opinion. But there again, are you the expert here? You say that Jesus never 'abrogated' the moral aspects of the Law. However, he certainly made sure that the woman caught in the act of adultery was not stoned! Was that not an abrogation of the Law!

You have also implied that Jesus 'by implication' did say something about homosexuality. I cannot personally find any evidence of that. can you tell me where i might find it? However, we'll stretch a point and say that there might be a possibility that his teaching about heterosexuality applied equally to homosexuality. Then, the very same proscriptions would apply. No more and no less!

You say that a "proper engagement with Scripture at this point would incorporate a careful study of the relationship between 'law' and 'gospel' - with particular reference to Pauls 'law of Christ' " The verse which you quoted say just this: "You should carry each other's troubles and fulfil the law of Christ". It is interesting that, in my J.B. version, this section is headed: 'On kindness and perseverance'. This heading alone indicates that Christ's 'New Commandment' - to love - is paramount in our relationships one to another - whether those relationships are of marriage, kinship or friendship.

In my understanding of orthodoxy, Peter, if God does not condemn something, then God cannot help but bless it. Remember, Jesus came not into this world to condemn the world, but to redeem it. We are all sinners, and Christ came into the world to save sinners - that's you and me, and every single person that God has created in the divine Image and Likeness of God's self. It is my job and yours, as clergy in our Church, to proclaim the Good News of God's love for all God's children. My hands were meant to bless, not curse. Why? Because that is my calling and vocation - not to condemn people to hell, but to show them the way to heaven.

Such an approach seeks to (impossibly) posit the person of God over the words of God, and I think, is seen implicitly in the practice of standing for (only) the gospel reading. Biblical Theology, Divine authorial intent, and, somewhat ironcially, a truly Christological hermeneutic need to be applied to the second author's position. When I get the time...