Ok, I'm having some troubles with the doctrine of the perspicuity of Scripture, and I was wondering if someone could help me out. I'll outline what's been going through my head; it's not supposed to be a knock-down, drag-out argument against perspicuity, but rather what I'm struggling with.
First, why is the issue important? It seems to me that there are three major options: go with an institutional church (Roman Catholicism or Eastern Orthodox), admit perspicuity of Scripture on matters of salvation, or be elitist (only those who have the time and energy to devote to thoroughly studying Scripture in its context could really know the truth, and even then it's doubtful; a variant on this would be a priesthood of scholars who pass on their "knowledge" to the masses).* I'm currently not liking any of the options; elitism certainly seems contrary to the Biblical message and I think that RC and EO have issues in their interpretations on Scripture (they don't seem to have kept the message as faithfully as they claim). It seems that the hope for Protestantism is that the individual can indeed get the basics out of Scripture without any (human) help.
Empirically, this does seem to be lacking. It could be entirely possible that most of these Protestants in the end agree on the important issues, we just can't be sure what the important issues are. I would like to see some support of perspicuity before accepting a position like this, however, and quite frankly the only kind of argument I see doing any work at all is a sort of "Protestantism is right, Protestantism needs perspicuity of Scripture to get off the ground, therefore Scripture is perspicuous." Except that it seems that we need Scripture to be perspicuous to be sure of Protestant claims.
Below are basic summaries of some of the arguments I've heard which I simply don't accept and why. In the end, I'm having trouble finding Biblical support for perspicuity, and the empirical troubles make me want to dismiss it if the Bible doesn't support it.
- Argument 1: God knows language, would want to give us a message we can understand, and therefore did.
Reply: Arguments for "God would do something, therefore . . . ." just don't fly. If God hasn't told us what God would do in a situation, let's leave some room open for God's own decisions. Further, if God decides to use a tool, then God is restricted by that tool. We first need to settle the question of the extent to which perspicuity could even possibly be applicable to 2000 years of humanity over a wide range of cultures, not to mention when found in a text which is unabashedly culturally rooted itself (Paul wrote letters to specific situations in the churches, after all). - Argument 2: Scripture verse X says that God's message (or some phrase that we can take or even twist to mean God's message) is clear/understandable/able to save/etc. Therefore, Scripture is perspicuous.
Reply: Show me a verse which actually applies to the Bible in our current context, and I'll listen. God's message, however, is not only the written word; many times this is referring to a proclamation, or the content of a message (Paul uses it synonymously with the Gospel at points). Even insofar as it is referring to a written message (such as the Torah in certain Psalms and Deuteronomy, or possibly Paul's writings), it is always within an interpretive community (the Israelite institution, or the new church complete with disciples who had been with Jesus and eyewitnesses, as well as churches which had heard more of Paul than we have in his letters). In short, there is no similar situation to our own in which the Bible talks of God's word being clear, and the way in which these verses get used for the purpose of perspicuity is an example of why I am so fed up with both the doctrine and low-church Protestantism as it is. - Argument 3: Elitism is false, and RC and EO make false salvific claims, therefore we are left with Protestantism under the assumption of perspicuity of Scripture.
Reply: So who makes the judgments on what Scripture means? If the individual, the this begs the question. If the learned individual, then we have elitism. If the community, I would want to see why I should trust the given community; RC and EO provide some evidence of continuity with the early church, even if I doubt that it is anywhere near as strong as they claim. An alternative would be communities which show forth the fruits of the gospel the best. Low-church Protestant bodies don't really seem to qualify for either. - Argument 4: Even if you deny perspicuity of Scripture, you still need to listen to tradition and have thus simply moved the problem to a different level.
Reply: This is simply not understanding the critique offered by traditionalists. The tradition is embodied in a living interpretive community. There is a framework for how to interpret the Bible set up through listening to the thousands of voices surrounding oneself, starting with those nearest and working its way outward. I can always ask questions to clarify what someone living meant by a comment, and I at least share similarities of culture with those close to me in place and time.
So, there are my basic thoughts. I'm hoping there is something wrong; however, I'm having trouble seeing what it is. I at least as a scholar can go and research the issues, but what can we expect of the common believer? Do we simply say that anyone who is actually serious about their faith needs to go through a rigorous academic course in order to really know what they're talking about with Scripture? I know that the Bible verses I usually hear quoted in a typical church by laypeople seem to me to be woefully misunderstood, and insofar as they are used appropriately this seems to be random luck. However, muzzling laypeople doesn't seem to be a good option either.
I'm probably simply missing something simple here and making a fool out of myself. Oh well, better to admit to being a fool than to continuing struggling with doubts because I can't bother to ask other people for help.
----* Edit: I guess this could be falling into the modernist purely objective/purely subjective false dichotomy; maybe there is no infallible authority, but we can still make our way anyhow (even if Scripture is theoretically inerrant, perspicuity is required to make this infallibility practical for most people). An Anglican position could then work, allowing revision but listening to the tradition. This would still seem to invalidate most Evangelicalism. Alternatively, do we drop (or marginalize) orthodoxy for orthopraxy? Even here, there seems to be some issues with perspicuity, but not as many; I don't think people disagree on many of the issues so much as ignore them. Plus, there still is the issue of salvation: even though we should be like Jesus, and we have a good example in Jesus himself what that is like, what is it that saves us and enables us to be like Jesus?
Yet another option is postmodernism and/or relativism. Not that I'm comfortable with this option either. However, at least let us get it straight that relativism and subjectivity do not entail anti-realism; they simply entail that whatever is actually real cannot be summed up in absolute/objective statements. So on this view, reading Scripture is a process where as we read, we gradually learn, without necessarily being able to say without remainder that a given view is correct. Again, I'm not completely comfortable with the view, but at the same time I don't think that it's quite as weak as a modernist critique suggests (of course it doesn't support modernism. That's hardly a critique of it.) and if perspicuity fails it may be the best way of retrieving a quasi-Protestant way of going about church.
1 comment:
Perhaps look at Dan Treier's book _Virtue and the Voice of God_? Some of the work to sort through is in discussing speculative discourse and practical discourse (and whether speculative is a species of practical, or vice versa, or neither is reducible to the other). I tend to think of a 'lay person' as someone with experience of God, that may or may not be well understood and articulated by that lay-person or their pastor. This is an epistemological or phenomenological approach-- so any final judgment is always left for God, but still there are clues about whether or not some articulation or practice is questionable in light of Scripture and theological wisdom (both theoretical and practical). You may have a pagan in practice who has a much better theoretical understanding of Christian orthodoxy and a practicing Christian whose theoretical understanding pales in comparison to this pagan; still the pagan at some juncture is dependent on the lay-person, whether historically or with real people he or she knows. I know of pagan theologians who are quite influenced by tradition and so know the right direction of fit for a good theological argument, but may not themselves act by faith. I tend to trust this educated pagan theologically (in terms of articulation of orthodox doctrine), and the uneducated lay-person spiritually. All the better when one with faith is educated.
Perhaps perspicuity of Scripture could be divided up into practical and theoretical knowledge, such that a Christian may act rightly by reading Scripture, but may not have a large enough und. of the text itself. So, on this view, the Holy Spirit is the *legitimater* of the orthopraxis, possibly unbeknownst by the believer. However, some might construe this as a denial of the filioque, which often gets represented as 'knowledge precedes action' (Word and Love), but the 'knowledge' involved here may not be perfect knowledge, but imperfect--still, people can act with love with imperfect knowledge, though that love may stoke desire for better knowledge (cf. Augustine, ..Henry of Ghent).
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