Many within the reformed and evangelical traditions hold high the authority of the Bible, and such a tribe assents to the position that the Bible is the inspired, infallible and errant word of God. Those who uncritically accept such a position often fail to see that they dwell within an ethos that works, in fact, with two levels of authority. There is the Bible that acts as a formal and material source of authority (de jure) and there is the interpretive and factual (de facto) reality that is also authoritative. The Bible must always be interpreted, and it is in the interpretation (often not reflected upon) that a second or deuterocanonical form of authority emerges. There are many who naively assume that their interpretation of the Bible has the same authority as the Bible. In short, the Bible as authority (de jure) equals the authority of their interpretation (de facto).
The fact that most Christians agree that the Bible is a source of authority (de jure) raises the question about why so many Christians such as the Orthodox, Roman Catholic, Anglican and the vast proliferation of protestants differ on how to interpret the Bible in reality (de facto). This obvious interpretive fragmentation cannot be denied and is an indisputable fact. This reality, therefore, raises a deeper and more demanding question. What are the criteria for interpreting the Bible and who determines such a criteria? It is imply naïve and silly to ignore the fact that this secondary level of authority (deuterocanonical) is as important (if not more so) than the fact the Bible is accepted as the authoritative text for most forms of Christianity.
Most Christians (from a variety of perspectives) would see the Bible as their source of authority, but how the text is interpreted and used in a personal, ecclesial and public manner is what divides Christians of good faith. The de facto interpretive authority is, in fact, the real authority. It is this interpretive authority that has, again and again, divided and separated Christians. It is, therefore, quite short sighted and simplistic to suggest that people should just read the Bible—it is God’s Word, is it not? The more substantive question is: whose interpretation of the Bible, Holy Spirit or Jesus is the authoritative one?
All of us, for a variety of reasons, bring to the text filters and selective tendencies that predetermine what verses and books we will priorize in the interpretive process. This acts as the real authority in how we, in fact, use the text. Luther, for example, held ‘sola scriptura’ high and holy, but he tended to reduce the primary message of the text to ‘justification by grace through faith’. Many of the early Anabaptists made the Beatitudes their interpretive authority in reaction to the Magisterial Reformers.
The Roman Catholics interpret the Bible differently from the Orthodox, and protestant Christians from the reformed, evangelical, liberal or charismatic tribes part paths because of their interpretations of the Bible. So, how is the decision made by which the Bible is to be interpreted? It is this de facto level of authority that is, in fact, the deeper and real authority. Until this reality is recognized and acknowledged, many will just falsely assume that their commitment to the Bible as a source of authority (de jure) and their interpretation of the Bible (de facto) are one and the same. The reality is this: our interpretations of the Bible (and the criteria we use for interpreting the text) are the actual and factual authority we live, move and have our being within. This is why, in many ways, the 2nd level of interpretive authority (deuterocanonical) is much more important than the primary authority of the Bible. The actual interpretation and application of the Bibles hinges more on often unexamined interpretive criteria that we smuggle into our read of the text. It is also these interpretive criteria that separate Christians who hold a high view of the Bible.
Those who naively claim that they simply want to love Jesus, be faithful to the Bible and follow the Holy Spirit beg all sorts of interpretations of such a trinity. Whose version of Jesus, whose interpretation of the Bible, whose read of the Holy Spirit? There is no such thing as a pure and unmediated read of Jesus, the Bible, Holy Spirit or the church. We all bring our prejudices, conditioning, dispositions, upbringing and much else to such an interpretive process. This does not mean, of course, all reads are equally valid. It does mean, though, that we all need to check and be honest with the often implicit interpretive glasses we bring to interpreting Jesus, Bible, Holy Spirit, church and public responsibility. This is why we need the witness of the 2000 year plus cloud of witnesses in this communal interpretive journey.
The one, holy, catholic and apostolic church has, in her refined and nuanced way, thought through and developed a multilayered way of interpreting the Bible that shapes and forms how those in their personal, ecclesial and public journey can make sense of their pilgrimage through time. Each of these interpretive levels, when brought together, like musicians and instruments in an orchestra, make for a full orchestral sound. It is these senses of scripture that can aid and deepen the faith journey. The lowest level is the literal/historical. This approach is of vital importance, and it should never be demeaned or diminished. Such an approach grounds the read in the text and attempts to make sense of such a text in a historic context. The protestant tradition has tended to fix its gaze on this interpretive sense. The second interpretive level is the allegorical sense. The allegorical sense (and typological also) highlights how Jesus the Christ has been, is and ever shall be present and immanent in the Hebrew canon (Old Testament), Christian canon, life in the church in and beyond time. The third sense is the tropological. It is through the tropological interpretive sense that the deeper ethical vision of life in Christ, the church and the world becomes unveiled for the longing pilgrim. The fourth level is the anagogical way. This interpretive sense awakens and stirs the mystical and contemplative capacities, and it points the way to the ‘unio mystica’ and the ‘corpus christi’. It is by living into union with Christ, the church and the world, as much and as far as possible in this life, that the highest and deepest level of scripture is understood and lived forth.
The historic and mother church tradition holds high the Bible as a source of authority, but she has also realized that the Bible needs to be interpreted. How is the Bible to be interpreted? The Church has, in her time tried wisdom, articulated a fourfold method of interpretation of the Bible: literal/historical, allegorical/typological, tropological and anagogical. It is this fourfold interpretive process that acts at a secondary level (deuterocanonical). When the authority of the Bible, and the fourfold interpretive authority meet and greet, a marriage of Divine and cosmic proportions is in the offing. It is in this marriage that the fullness of Christ (Totus Christus) will be fully revealed.
Ron Dart
Ron,
Thanks for laying out the interpretive issues involved in treating Scripture as authoritative. Thanks too for outlining the approaches that the historic church took to their hermeneutics.
It sparked memories of my first hermeneutics classes (on the grammatical-historical-literal approach as ‘the only right way’ to handle Scripture). The four-layered system of Origen et al was often dismissed far too easily for reasons that I now consider more modernist than evangelical. I suspect that the allegorical and mystical ways to Scripture were seen as too ‘subjective’ and creative… dangerous to the scientific mind. We wrote them off as ‘spiritualizing’ and had little grid for the Spirit’s role in interpretation (a la 1 Cor. 2). Anything pre-Reformation had no place at the table in those days.
Later I was introduced to Brevard Childs’ ‘canonical-contextual’ approach. I found it very helpful in that it recognized the authority of the text as we have received it in its final form, rather than obsessing over the hypothetical inerrancy of original documents that we no longer have. Whatever form written revelation first took, it was clearly edited, expanded, redacted and gathered into its current canonical shape. Childs also saw the key to interpretation located in the text itself, rather than the plenitude of speculative reconstructions of bygone people and cultures that we simply have no access to. Finally, he also recognized the role of the Church in the authorization process, rather than positing it solely in the moment of revelation (and which moment? when Joel heard God? when Joel spoke what he heard? when his words were recorded? when his words were gathered and published?).
Through all of this, I found it odd that we were obviously creating and using different hermeneutical principles than those used by Jesus or Paul or John when they drew from the Hebrew Scriptures. E.g. If Paul could use Midrash under inspiration, why were we not learning to use Midrash? Again, it may have left too much leeway for the interpreter … but surely we take liberties in any case.
It strikes me that in the end, we believe in the authority of God in Christ as our first and final authority, as mediated through the Spirit, the Church and the Scriptures in a three-legged tandem. All three are necessary to truly know and obey God. Charismatics lean heavily on the Holy Spirit, Protestants on the Bible, and the Mother Church tradition on the witness of the tradition. But this too is a bit of a caricature and generalization. For example, it is remarkable how well charismatics often know their Scriptures and it is surprising how charismatic my Orthodox friends are. Meanwhile, Protestants are waking up to the importance of the tradition of the Church Fathers.
But my point is that if God himself is to be our authority, we will need a solid dose of all three sources (and our Methodist friends would add Reason to complete their quadrilateral) if we are to have any hope of hearing the authoritative voice of God in Christ through the host of de facto filters that Ron has mentioned. As critical realists, our discernment will have to be sharply tuned to the Word, the Body and the Spirit … but if Ron is right, and I think he is, we will also need to keep a sharp and critical eye on our own distorting lenses. We’ll also need to be much better at listening for help from those tribes of Christian faith beyond our own limited boundaries.
To me, this is a great adventure and we haven’t had such an opportunity for a long time. For all its downsides, the internet era allows us to contact world class scholars or the monks on Mt. Athos or the Classical works from antiquity to help us sort through questions of the faith and difficulties in the text. We’ve actually become aware of each other and moved from isolation to conversation. On this front, at least, I’m encouraged.
Very good.
“The de facto interpretive authority is, in fact, the real authority.”
Indeed.
Which is why we need the whole church — the church of historical length and ecumenical width — in order to interpret Scripture. The Bible is not given to “me,” it is given to “us.” It takes the whole church to interpret the whole Bible.
What I’ve learned to do is acknowledge the various lenses of translation, tradition, and interpretation, and try reading Scripture through different lenses — Orthodox, Catholic, Anglican, Protestant, Evangelical, Charismatic, etc.; plus the lenses translation, historical-critical method, allegorical, mystical, lectico divina, etc.
A fundamentalist is a person reading scripture through a thick pair of lenses, but unaware he is wearing glasses at all.
Another thought…
Sola Scriptura makes it virtually impossible for one to explain why they believe the Bible. They believe the Bible because it’s the Bible, because it’s the Bible, because it’s the Bible… Well, fine, but they should abandon any pretense of apologetics and simply admit to a kind of fideism of the Bible. The Josh McDowell kind of pop apologetics are really disingenuous; the adherents of that kind of Sola Scriptura simply believe the Bible because it is the Bible and they should not pretend otherwise.
My faith in Scripture is more nuanced. It works like this:
1. I believe in Jesus. I believe in Jesus because of my subjective experience with the risen Christ; an experience that can neither be proved nor disproved, it can only be witnessed to, and thus believed or disbelieved.
2. But my faith in Jesus is not unmediated; it comes through the witness of the church; i.e. it is because of the faithfulness of the church within the world that I have received the word of Christ whereby I believed. Thus I come to have faith in the church.
3. Finally, the church says to me, “We have a sacred and canonized book.” And they give me the Bible.
I believe the Scriptures because I believe in the church, because I believe in Jesus.
Or something like that.
BZ
‘Like’ 🙂