Second, we must also wrestle with some basic questions
surrounding the relationship between Biblicism
and hermeneutics:
There will be considerable overlap in the discussion as these
issues are not easily sundered.
In keeping with the Sola Scriptura tradition Biblicism
insists on Scriptural perspicuity and yet this is rooted in the testimony of
the Holy Spirit and in submission to the text. This appeal to basic clarity must
be contrasted with the epistemology and naive realism of the Common Sense
school. While doctrine and belief are rightly meant to reflect or correspond to
the 'plain sense' of the text, the empiricist confidence of that school is brought
to the text, requires the Scriptures to conform with its sensibilities and is
then used to move beyond them – a point of departure from the Biblicism
advocated here.
New Testament Biblicism demands an embrace of mystery and yet
this must not be confused with mysticism and an epistemology rooted in subjective,
esoteric or immediate forms of communication. Biblicism must argue that the
final Word has been given, is normative and needed and while the supernatural
is real and active in the affairs of men, revelation as such has ended. The
only revelation which remains to be unveiled is found in the coming of Jesus
Christ. Christ directly appointed the final prophets for this Last Days order
and he is the final Word.
Biblicism is necessarily Christocentric, understanding Christ
to be the main, overarching and dominating theme of the Scriptures. It is
Christ that ratifies the Old Testament and establishes a correct understanding
of it. It is Christ that directly selects the apostles who by the Holy Spirit
elaborate his teachings and establish the doctrinal foundations of the Church –
Paul was the last to be selected and John was by tradition the last to die.
This reality affects our understanding of canon and establishes the New
Covenant as the canon, the covenant document for the Church. Ephesians 2 tells
us the Church, now the Commonwealth of Israel, the one body of Jew and Gentile
believers is established on the foundation of the apostles and prophets, Jesus
Christ himself being the chief corner stone.
As such the claim of being Whole Bible Christians as opposed to New Testament Christians while intuitively attractive is
nevertheless misleading or at least has the potential to be. Leviticus is not
on par with Ephesians or Hebrews. Leviticus has been subordinated as part of an
obsolete covenant, a system and typology that has been fulfilled and is as such
no longer needed. It has tremendous value and should be recalled and treasured
and when read through the lens of Christ, it may also be utilised – not in a
reiteration of Old Covenant ethics or polity, nor in terms of providing
doctrinal equity that is then applied to the culture of our day, but as a tool
in better understanding the profundity and glory of the New Testament, in what
it reveals of Christ and the ordering of creation.
The Redemptive-Historical hermeneutics being offered here
stress both unity and disunity in terms of the relationship between Old and New
Testaments. This relation is one of the great doctrinal-theological questions
of our age and the ways in which it has been answered have and continue to
affect not just the nature and shape of doctrine but the very form and conception
of the Church and it is an underlying theme to the struggles within Church
history. The Biblicism advocated here insists on Christ being the central or
focal point of the grand unifying narrative, but in the unity/disunity paradigm
presented by the New Testament, there is a constant interplay of comparison and
contrast. There is a seamless narrative and yet at the same time one of deep
division and on more than one occasion the Old and New Covenants are sharply
contrasted, especially when the Old Covenant is viewed in isolation from the
Christocentric unity.
Thus, we are forced to reject not only the disjointed
non-Christocentric and artificial segmentation demonstrated by the school of
Dispensationalism in all its iterations but at the same time there is the
ever-present spectre of monocovenantal error at work in much of the
Confessional world. And in the broader Evangelical camps there is just plain
unprincipled confusion and arbitrariness when it comes to this vital and
doctrinally foundational issue.
It is the person of Christ himself that teaches us the nature
of Divine-human relation, identification and reasoning in the mystery that is
the Incarnation. Defiant of all logical formulation, the wonder of the Second
Person of the Trinity taking on humanity is a miracle that is also
epistemologically and hermeneutically instructive – yea, even central to our
understanding of what the Bible is.
As such Biblicism should embrace the posture of Early Church
primitivism, retaining doctrine as it's presented often in unelaborated form.
Concepts are limited rather than philosophically developed. Unresolved dynamics
and tensions are left as they are presented. Doctrine is often presented and
utilised in occasional form determined by context rather than presented as a
unified system, which in epistemological terms is not possible to either attain
or for that matter fully grasp. Acknowledging that all such expressions will be
guilty of reductionism and thus are ultimately misleading, the very systematics
project ought to be (on some level) abandoned.
The Analogy of Scripture is a valid concept and indeed at the
heart of Biblicism is the notion that the Scriptures interpret themselves.
Rather than filter exterior and historical models of logic through the
Scriptures, Biblicism posits that the spiritual logic of the Scriptures is
self-contained, rooted in the relation of the supernatural and natural in the
Person of Christ. Again, the logic defying revelation of the miracle that is
the Incarnation informs us that in the nexus of the spiritual and natural, the
eternal and temporal, our logic rooted in sense experience, temporality and the
limited abilities of the finite mind to conceive is not sufficient but we are
called to submit (in thought and word) to the revelation in order to possess
the hope of apprehension.
As such the Analogy of Scripture is subject to abuse,
especially in the way it is often employed. It's valid in terms of the
temporal, reconciling narrative and in resolving questions of chronology,
numbers and the like but it must not be used to flatten out or prioritise
eternal revelatory truths in order to fit our conceptions or to integrate them
into some kind of unified coherent grid.
That said it is proper to establish basic principles in clear
didactic passages such as the epistles and the clearer statements in the
gospels and then move toward the sometimes difficult parables and prophetic
passages. Again, this is a broad sweep, a generalisation of what is meant by
Biblicism and how it affects theology and hermeneutics. The application of
these ideas is not always simple and straightforward and yet in other respects
it can be argued that the scholastic method tends to make some issues overly
complicated and difficult and the method of prioritisation generates and
multiplies so-called 'problem passages', an indicator of flawed methodology and
a sign of the imposition of an alien hermeneutic that is not derived from the
revelatory text itself.
In terms of hermeneutics, apocalyptic literature is in some
respects the most difficult to reckon with on a principled basis. A New
Testament base guides the reader through the complicated interplay of fulfilled
Old Testament passages and symbols and the New Testament's way of reiterating
and transforming these images within a new context. Temporality and chronological
succession so basic to our experience are often imposed on these texts in a
detrimental and restrictive fashion. Though this ranges beyond strict
discussions of Biblicism I would argue that the application of the
aforementioned principles liberates the reader from these restrictions,
revealing eternal atemporality and what are often a series of repetitive but
modified and nuanced reiterative visions that grant different vantage points as
the age or aeon is portrayed. This is true in both the Old and New Testament
examples of apocalyptic writings.
In general terms Biblicism must resist many of the
inclinations and assumptions of Systematic Theology and instead embrace a
Redemptive-Historical position that focuses instead on themes, context, types
and symbols and the progressive revelation of Christ. Some would say there is
no conflict between Systematics and Redemptive-Historical or Biblical Theology.
And yet the Biblicist must argue that systematics encapsulates an
epistemological commitment that will always trump all other hermeneutical
considerations. Again there is a meta-system but it necessarily eludes us and
instead we are reliant on the text which reveals doctrines and Divine Truth to
us in various contexts all pointing to and culminating in the Person of Christ.
The systematic impulse (relying on coherentism), the principlising method which
attempts to extract timeless truths and ethics (often divorced from context) is
also the foundation of the Confessionalist scheme which attempts to both wed
and restrict theological formulation to a specific Church historical narrative.
Both fail to do justice to the epistemology, hermeneutics and claims of
authority found within the text and divorce the various progressions of
revelation from their context – which is critical to understanding the
doctrines in and of themselves, how they relate to Christ and consequently how
they relate to the Church throughout the ages.
On a Biblical basis we can argue that Naive Realism and
Common Sense philosophy in general err in epistemological terms. And when these
still dominant, largely Aristotelian principles are applied to the text of
Scripture they begin to subject it and restrict it to the boundaries of
empiricism. In good scholastic fashion its adherents move (both inductively and
deductively) beyond the text to the formulation of a rationalist construct.
They believe they are employing a realist and correspondence based method to
the text and as such their words and formulations are sure to be accurate
expressions of propositional Biblical truth.
And yet if naive or direct realism fails to apprehend metaphysical
realities and as such must form a limited representation in the mind particular
to the perceptor, the resulting conclusions and formulations are the fruit of
idealism – a coherence of minimised and misunderstood perceptions integrated
with other facts or axioms. This will function within a 'common' consensus, a
theory of truth-verification tied to a kind of group-think unanimity, cultural
process or context. An epistemology which recognises the problems with idealism
and its threat of subjectivity makes a determined effort to prioritise
correspondence over coherence and root logical reflection in unanimous
experience over rationalist deduction – and yet we find that even this
epistemological attempt fails and falls into the trap of idealism. Other schools
committed to systematics all but embrace idealism and treat Scripture as the
axiomatic source for a deductive
enterprise which largely stands or falls on the basis of coherence and moves
beyond the text on that basis.
The correspondence understanding advocated by Biblicism is
aware of the dangers of idealism and forcing coherence on the text. As such it
is a correspondence epistemology that is subordinate to revelation, willing to
suspend spatio-temporal experience, so-called common sense and perceived
coherence as it attempts to analogically reflect (by the lesser medium of
temporal finite verbiage) the truths revealed to us – God accommodating us
through the utilisation of spoken words put on tongues and in the ink-stained
hands of chosen men. An analogical understanding can embrace the truth of
revealed words and the qualities they contain without succumbing to the trap of
propositionalism and its limiting even quantitatively defined conceptions of
truth and verification. Even hermeneutics cannot be divorced from epistemology
and prolegomena. These first considerations, so often ignored or assumed are at
the heart of understanding what the Bible is and how it is to be read.
It is noteworthy that all too often in the New Testament
faith is portrayed as trust which translates into obedience. This is not just a
question that touches on soteriology but rather one's understanding of doctrine
itself. To many theologians faith in a Biblically presented doctrine is rooted
in its technical construction, its systemic integration and even at times its
falsifiability. Biblicism insists this method even when supposedly employed
intratextually (as with the Analogy of Scripture) is ultimately subversive to
the authority of the text and the testimony of the Holy Spirit and thus must be
eschewed.
The result of Biblicism is a body of doctrine that is
Christocentric and thus by nature will often embrace a series of dualities –
not to be confused with absolute dualism. These dynamics, unresolved tensions
and dialectics reveal a multifaceted and variegated structure which while
nuanced and subject to occasional or contextual use, is in no way relativistic
or subjective. It reveals a doctrinal order that can be applied in occasional
fashion as we observe both with Christ in the gospels and the apostles in Acts
and the Epistles. Rather than develop a governing centraldogma (apart from Christocentricity) that dominates a system
or category of theology, we can understand how doctrines relate and flow
through the grand sweep of Scriptural revelation.
There
is interplay, comparison and contrast, unity and disunity. There are binding
concepts and concepts which function synecdochically, in a part-for-whole
fashion. For example Union with Christ is the binding and central aspect of how
salvation is described and revealed and yet sometimes individual soteriological
facets such as sanctification and justification are used in part-for-whole
fashion as synonymous with salvation itself. Again, trouble arises in
prioritisation schemes (Justification is the article by which the Church stands
or falls) or when chronological succession (such as the ordo salutis) is imposed.
Neither the apostles nor Christ teach in systematic fashion and that should
inform us even if it seems 'loose' or 'sloppy' or perhaps even ambiguous at
times. The scholastic approach deemed so necessary to some, forces the grandiosity
of Biblical doctrine into a minimalist and thus inaccurate box.
Likewise the concepts of Israel, Temple, Church, Kingdom and
Covenant are at times contextualised and contrasted to mean different things
and focus on different issues and yet they are also Christocentrically woven
together in a way that overlaps the concepts and unifies the narrative. There
is a coherence. There is a system but it defies our attempts at systematisation
and technical description. Our statements and our teaching are on safe ground
when they restrict themselves to the limits of the text and its formulations.
This is why we believe expository preaching is Biblically faithful in a way
that topical and catechetical preaching are not. Topical treatments are
sometimes warranted but catechetical preaching is invalid. It's not teaching
the Scriptures but a system. I realise its advocates believe the two have
become synonymous – and thus they make their Confessional documents to be functionally
deuterocanonical works, a clear rejection or at least redefinition of Sola
Scriptura.
The various theological approaches of our day all wreak havoc
on this dynamic aspect of revelation and tend to prioritise certain doctrines
at the expense of others or focus so intently on technical minutiae as to divide
otherwise unified concepts – and in the process the proverbial trees are so
multiplied (in an absolutised sense) that the theologian loses sight of the
forest.
Now, there are some who might use these ideas as a means of
arguing for an encompassing ecumenical theology and that would be a misuse of
what's being suggested here. In no way does Biblicism seek to 'flatten out' or
'round off' doctrine or seek a lowest common denominator. The stand on the
Bible itself is enough to dash any hope of ecumenism.
Some will accuse Biblicism (as presented here) of being
guilty of contradiction and equivocation, charges rooted in a logic-system that
the Scriptures themselves do not endorse. Others will say that such broad
speech and 'double-talk' opens the door to Theological Liberalism (and its
redefinition of terms) and Barthianism's ambiguity and slippery concepts.
Again, the Scriptures themselves resolve these charges and the stand being made
on the supernaturalistic authoritative Bible refutes both liberalism and
Barthianism. In fact the Biblicism advocated here is able to combat the
assumptions and influences of Theological Liberalism and Barthianism on a far
greater and more effective scale than the Scholastic method which has already
granted too much in the realm of epistemology and consequently has conceded a
great deal to these enemy camps. Indeed they are in many respects its progeny –
deformed outworkings of its epistemological commitments.
That said, this understanding will allow for and afford a
great deal of charity and scope to how one interacts with other Christians. It
helps to ask the right and penetrating questions and to quickly identify the
nature of problems. Well meaning people are sometimes led down bad roads. In
some cases they haven't thought through the implications and nature of
epistemology. They accept their cultural norms as we're all bound to do at some
point. For others there are deep emotional and cultural issues affecting their
thought. This is not to make light of these problems. They are serious and in
some cases risk the person falling astray and losing their way. And yet,
Biblicism can also help us to reach these people by forcing them into an
epistemological crisis. I have seen this at work. I have polemically employed
this method driving some to re-think their faith and understanding and as a
result move away from their Evangelical assumptions. Others have reacted in the
opposite way by embracing a liberal view of Scriptures and ethics. They
realised the normalised popular understanding of Sola Scriptura doesn't hold
very well and yet the implications of my argument contained too much they just
couldn't accept.
Biblicism also plays out in ethics as it takes the words and
imitation of Christ with the utmost seriousness and employs no methods of
casuistry. It rejects hermeneutics (and thus ethics) rooted in trajectory
thinking. This is somewhat tricky as Redemptive-History certainly focuses on a
Christward trajectory and yet that process of redemption is accomplished and
'finished' in Christ. Trajectory-thinking is at work in many theological
spheres, believing the Bible is but a starting point requiring a cultural and
in some cases culturally relevant outworking which of course is accomplished by
means of deductive theology and often the integration of extra-Biblical
knowledge and concepts. This ranges from the ratification of the
post-Constantinian shift in attitudes about violence, money and power to the
modern varieties of the doctrine that use trajectory thinking to interact with
contemporary culture and the shift in values.
Using this methodology they can argue the Scriptures demand and
point to abolitionism, feminism or the ideologies of Classical Liberalism. Of
course Confessionalism is rooted in a kind of arrested trajectory paradigm embracing extra-Scriptural 'progress'
in some realms (such as the embrace of post-Constantinian values) and in the
development of theology. However they insist that this centuries long process
was required to stop at a particular point or stage in Church History.*
Needless to say the Biblicist viewpoint finds this narrative suspiciously
convenient and unconvincing and of course those who embrace trajectory thinking
and progress in the realm of theology (and yet reject Confessionalism) find it
to be self-serving if not absurd, an untenable position rooted more in
ecclesiastical and social politics than in any theological concept derived from
Scripture or as the result of philosophical consequence.
---
*Don't misunderstand me. I'm not in any way advocating for
slavery but at the same time the abolitionist case cannot be made from the New
Testament. The apostles had no interest in changing the social order but rather
focused on how Christians were to interact with it.
Race-based chattel slavery was an abomination rooted in
Constantinian ethics, anthropological heresy and avaricious man-stealing. It
was right for Christians to help escaping slaves in violation of the law but it
was wrong for Christians to take up the sword and kill others for this cause –
all the more when done in the name of Christ. I realise this is a hard saying
especially for Black Americans. How then could chattel slavery hope to be
overthrown? Over time men, moved by Providence did this on their own and we can
be happy the change came about, even if a host of sometimes unsavoury and
troublesome methods were used. But let us not forget the events that brought
about the end of American slavery were sinful just as the institution itself
was. Sin often begets sin. We ought not to embrace a consequentialist ethic
that says vengeance-killing is right because slavery is wrong. The Church did
fail during this episode as it did (generally speaking) through the whole
history of revolution, slavery, colonisation and empire.