Key Moments on the Journey, Part 1: Shattering a Scriptural Paradigm

Abandoning the Perspicuity of Scripture

In this “mini-series” of sorts, I thought I’d chronicle a number of key moments - discoveries, changes, encounters, and so on - that had a decisive impact on my theological and spiritual development. Although in many ways my journey has indeed been meandering, and so may have, from the outside, seemed little more than a chaotic series of changes from one thing to another, there has also been a core of continuity, a clear trajectory in a particular direction. It is that overall trajectory, and some of the treasures I’ve found along the way, that I hope to convey in this series. I imagine many readers will relate to much if not most of my experience, and for those who don’t, perhaps it may inspire you to find some of the same treasures.

Shattering a Scriptural Paradigm

Reasonable Christians - Catholics, Orthodox, and Protestants of various stripes - can and do disagree about a variety of important theological issues. This much is obvious, and hardly needs stating. This obvious fact, however, is often the starting point that impels the more curious among us on a journey of profound discovery. And so it was with me.

Fairly early in my spiritual journey, I began asking myself why reasonable Christians of good-will disagree, and how I might go about adjudicating, as best I could, between competing claims on issues such as the nature of salvation, the church, the sacraments, heaven, hell, and God Himself. Some might dismiss such disagreements between Christians as being over “secondary issues” only, but a moment’s reflection banishes such a thought. It is not of secondary importance how we are saved, who has authority over us, who goes to hell, why, and for how long, or whether the Eucharist is or is not a participation in the very flesh, blood, soul and divinity of Christ Himself. The stakes are high, and so honesty and a love for the truth compelled me, and have compelled many others, to go looking for answers.

I began my journey of discovery, as any good Protestant would, by seeking to settle some of these issues in my own mind by simply consulting the Scriptures themselves. The first issue on my list was whether Calvinists or Arminians were correct in their interpretation of predestination. “This should be simple enough,” I thought. “I’ll simply read what Jesus and His disciples said on the matter, and see what the clearer position seems to be!”

You see, at this time (I believe the tender age of 17 or so) I had the notion that, on the most essential matters at least, the Scriptures should be clear enough to anyone in any context who picked up a Bible in any mainstream translation. Accordingly, my surface-level reading of a modern, English NIV translation of the Bible pretty quickly convinced me that Calvinism was correct. (As a side-note, along with the great George MacDonald, I eventually came to “turn with loathing” from the god of Calvinism.)

The trouble was, for better or worse, I’m a chronic self-questioner, and find it easy to get into the mindset of those with whom I presently disagree. I also feel I owe it to those with whom I disagree to consider their strongest arguments, and read their best representatives. Consequently, what I thought was settled was far from.

As the years passed, and I more deeply studied and reflected on the Scriptures and the various arguments and scholarship supporting various sides of these theological issues, I came to a stark realization: that even if the Scriptures might be “clear” on “essential matters” to some theoretical, ideal interpreter situated outside of finite and fallen history (perhaps angels?), they certainly were not so clear on many of these issues to historically situated, biased, cognitively limited, spiritually broken human beings like myself. And this became clear to me for at least four reasons.

First, every Bible translation inevitably involves at least some level of theological interpretation. Because for a given term or phrase there is often no one-to-one equivalent in the language in which the original is being translated (especially those as distinct as Koine Greek or Hebrew and modern English), and the semantic and cultural connotations and multiple meanings of terms can vary wildly between languages, an interpretive decision must be made at various crucial junctures in the process of translation. And this decision is very often guided by (and to some extent must be guided by) the theological biases and paradigms of the translator(s) - sometimes consciously, sometimes subconsciously.

The extent to which these translational decisions can impact issues of great theological significance can be clearly seen, for example, in the intense debates in New Testament scholarship over the last several decades over the Greek terms for “justification” and “faith in (of?) Christ.” These terms, as they occur in the NT, bear on issues of salvation itself, and inform historic debates between (for example) Protestants and Catholics/Orthodox. Is justification merely an extrinsic, legal declaration that makes one right before God, per historic Protestantism? Or is it rather (or in addition) a transformative process of increasing in righteousness before God by His Spirit, per historic Catholic and Orthodox perspectives? And are we saved by our faith in Christ? Or saved by the faith of Christ? These issues are not insignificant, and their answers, unfortunately, cannot be simply “read off the page” of the New Testament. Yet, a decision must be made on how to translate these terms, and relatedly, what commentary to provide on them, or what explanatory footnotes will say. And these decisions will be theologically informed. Translation is always interpretation.

Second, the very act of reading itself inevitably involves interpretation, typically guided, subconsciously, by an inherited theological paradigm. Here is one interesting example: Many are surprised to learn that, in all of the Apostles’ preaching of the Gospel in the Book of Acts, not once is the notion of eternal damnation mentioned. A coming divine judgment is mentioned, but that such a judgment might involve unending suffering is conspicuously absent (the same can be said, by the way, of Paul’s epistles). But then why should this fact strike so many of us who have read the Book of Acts as surprising? It is likely because when we read any language about final judgment, the “wrath to come,” and so on, we automatically interpret such language as meaning or implying, if only implicitly, the infliction of unending torment in hell.

Other examples could be given, but the main point should be obvious: As we read, we naturally interpret certain terms, phrases, sayings, or stories according to implicit assumptions we have about them, so much so that we often fail to even notice that the plain text, in itself, does not or need not imply or mean what we think it must. Of course, as in the case of translation, it is not in itself bad that we do this. Indeed, it is to some extent inevitable, and often useful. However, that we are prone to do this should introduce in us a healthy skepticism of our ability to simply sit down, break open the Bible, and know exactly what it uncontroversially means on essential matters.

Third, the scholarship by those with expertise in the original languages and historical context is constantly changing, and there are typically good arguments on each side. See, for example, the almost interminable debates over the “New Perspective on Paul,” debates over the precise relationship between various currents in Second Temple or Hellenic Judaism and New Testament theology, and so forth.

Fourth and finally, much if not most of Scripture clearly wasn’t even written to directly answer or provide in-depth guidance on many such important theological questions at all. Paul’s epistles (for example) were, for the most part, written to specific communities facing specific crises, and in each case he had a different point to make, and a different polemical or rhetorical strategy to make it. This is not to say, of course, that none of Scripture addresses theological concerns or questions we may have, either directly or indirectly. What it is to say is that the genre of most of Scripture is not that of a systematic theological treatise, but instead that of narrative, poetry, epistle, biography, and so forth, all of which contain moments of profound theological clarity, but also, inevitably, many other moments of profound theological obscurity or tension.

In short, I came to realize that the interpretation of Scripture, even on weighty matters, is far from simple or straightforward. The Protestant rallying cry of the perspicuity of Scripture is false.

This realization, however, did not lead me, and should not lead anyone, to a radical skepticism - as if Scripture is clear about nothing and we have no objective truths to learn from it. Rather, it simply lead me, and should lead everyone, to a humble acknowledgment of the difficulty of the exegetical process, and that one’s personal interpretation may not reflect the only reasonable interpretation someone may come to after careful reflection.

But this conclusion simultaneously lead to the next key realization in my journey: the indispensable value, indeed the necessity, of tradition. More specifically, the tradition as embodied by the Church Fathers.

I came to see that our interpretation of Scripture, and of the Christian life as a whole - of worship, prayer, theology, ascesis, and everything else - needed to be situated within an authoritative and living tradition of great saints and faithful interpreters that came before us. And, moreover, that the best place to begin to discover and learn from this tradition was to seek out what the earliest disciples of the apostles taught, believed, and practiced. Perhaps they, being so close to the spring of revelation and the apostles’ teaching, could provide insight on some of these important matters of controversy among various modern interpreters of Scripture. Like so many before me, reading what these great men of the Church had to say opened my eyes on a number of fronts, and I could not turn back. It was a world of sacraments, profound mysticism, hierarchy, the allegorical interpretation of Scripture, and spiritual depth I had never encountered in the ecclesial milieu I had experienced to that point.

It’s this second key realization - my ‘Patristic awakening’, if you will - that I’ll explore in greater depth in the next installment of this series.