To Michael Liccione on “Interpretive Paradigms”

I have posted the following over at Called to Communion as a response to Michael Liccione, #275. (My comment has been accepted as comments 287 and 288 beginning at this link for those who want to follow the discussion over there):

Rather than repeat myself here, I refer you to sections IV and V of the essay I wrote for CTC last year. The upshot of my argument was that we're dealing here with a clash of interpretive paradigms, such that the question which paradigm is more reasonable for the purpose of presenting divine revelation has to be discussed before we get into any particular set of exegetical and historical details. Present and intepret all the details of that sort you want--until you address that prior philosophical question, nothing that you or any other scholar say can rise beyond the level of opinion, and thus cannot clearly present divine revelation for the assent of faith.

Regarding your essay, I have to say that this very much strikes me as an exercise by a kid who has to write the rules of the game so that (a) the identity of the winner is never in doubt, and (b) the winner will always be the kid himself.

This “paradigm” is not something that is new to yourself (although you frame it in different words), it was actually was noticed by Turretin, who (vol 3, page 2), actually seemed to complain that his opponents would not actually discuss the facts, but “to this day … (although they are anything but the true church of Christ) still boast of their having alone the name of the church and do not blush to display the standard of that which they dispose. In this manner, hiding themselves under the specious title of the antiquity and infallibility of the Catholic church, they think they can, as with one blow, beat down and settle the controversy waged against them concerning the various and most destructive errors introduced into the heavenly doctrine”.

The Roman claim to authority is (and today is very much used as) an attempt, with one statement, to avoid argumentation on any other point of Scripture or doctrine.

That is, the argument from Rome’s side never is, “the doctrine is (a) because the Scripture says (a)”. The argument from Rome’s side is always “the doctrine is (b) even though the Scripture says (a) because ‘the Church’ has the ‘interpretive authority’ to make it (b)”.

I’ve commented a number of times where I think this impulse comes from: it is clearly recognizable in Imperial [secular, “not the church”] Rome, and it exists outside of what you think might be included in the “interpretive paradigm”:

Emperor Worship and the Ancient Roman Mindset (1)

Augustus Caeser, pontifex maximus, becomes a god

Caesar Worship and Christian Art

These are not in any particular order, and of course, “correlation does not imply causation”. It’s true that I have not yet “close the loop” on that particular thought, but I don’t think it’s a hard argument to make.

For example, it is clear that the Roman church [Pope Leo 1, specifically] used Roman law to bolster its own position, in defining itself in the fourth and fifth centuries (such “definitions” then being “reading back into” earlier statements about Rome, bishops of Rome, Peter, etc”, and being the source of Roman Catholic teaching about “divine institution” of itself. In fact, it’s no secret that Pope Leo I relied on Roman adoption law to make himself not just “a successor of” but the “heir” of Peter and thus giving himself “the same rights, authority and obligations as the one whom he replaced”. Now, to my mind, that is a thing that must be argued for on two levels: first, that Leo was anything near to being an “heir” to Peter, and second, whether God subjects himself and his kingdom to ancient Roman adoption laws. But that is for another day.

At any rate, I hope these blog posts of mine will give you some idea of why I tend to distrust (and in fact be dismissive of) your (and Rome’s) “interpretive paradigm”.

* * *

In your IP, here is your criterion: something that …

reliably identify[ies] the formal, proximate object of faith as distinct from human opinion.

you carefully avoid using the word “infallible” here, so that you avoid using the conclusion within the premise, but it is clear from the way that you posit this, that is the answer you are looking for.

However, your choice of “leaving it to mere human opinion about how to interpret sources that have been alleged to transmit divine revelation”, or choosing the method that you eventually adopt, is a false dilemma. It is not “either-or” (either “an infallible interpreter” or “mere human opinion”).

First, Scripture itself defines itself as what is “the formal, proximate object of faith”, or in the words of Bavinck’s editors (Vol 1, pg 354), that “Scripture does not [merely] give us data to interpret; it is itself the interpretation of reality.” Consider Jesus’s words in Luke 16:29: ‘They have Moses and the Prophets; let them listen to them.’ I could bring much more than this, but this illustrates that the concept is in Scripture: the words of the Scriptures themselves are “the formal, proximate object of faith”.

This is why Kruger’s work is so key at this point in the discussion, in clarifying that (contra Roman Catholic and other claims) Protestants are warranted, justified in their acceptance that the 27-book volume of the New Testament is the extent and limit of “divine revelation” we have today. He takes the wind out of the sails of the argument that “sola scriptura is self-defeating”.

His work tremendously bolsters Protestant epistemological claims in this area of “interpretive paradigms”. [Once you have read his reasons for this, and I’m not going to outline them here, you should feel free to argue with the specific arguments he makes. But I don’t think any Roman Catholic, from this time forward, should be able to get away with the facile statement “Sola scriptura is self-defeating”, without tackling Kruger’s specific and individual arguments].

The Protestant says, “Lord, you alone are my portion and my cup; you make my lot secure” (Psalm 16). Note that this trust, too, is fundamental to the Protestant IP. Once one’s faith in the “Lord” “alone” is established as the “formal principle” by which the Protestant (not just his “understanding”, but the Protestant in his own person) is secure, then is the understanding that “Your word is a lamp for my feet, a light on my path” (Psalm 119).

“Scripture interprets Scripture”, as the saying goes. [In this link, I show how Irenaeus himself does not hold to the Michael Liccione view of “IP”, but the Protestant view: “All Scripture, given to us by God, will be found consistent. The parables will agree with the clear statements and the clear passages will explain the parables. Through the polyphony of the texts a single harmonious melody will sound in us, praising in hymns the God who made everything.”

This comports with Old Testament notions of Authority, too. God does not give the Israelites a Bible and then say “wait for someone to come along who can identify the formal, proximate object of faith as distinct from human opinion”. He says, “Get the assembly of the people together (“the church”) and read the law to them”. God himself plays an active role in this process. He says, “my word shall not return to me void”. Remember Psalm 16: God himself makes our lot secure.

In the Old Testament, God’s word is “the formal, proximate object of faith”. No “interpretation” was required. It’s true, Moses and others were called upon to “judge” in specific instances. And this occurred in the Old Testament, and the Reformers allowed, too, that the church would have “ministerial authority” to judge in disputes.

But this relates to the very question that was brought up in my previous comment:

while Roman Catholicism claims that the “successors” after the apostles have some very similar authority vis-à-vis the message [of the Gospel, i.e., “interpretive” authority], I am rather saying is that those who followed the apostles had a somewhat (in fact, a good deal reduced authority vis-à-vis “the message]. The difference is characterized “ministerial” vs “magisterial”, and we can talk about that at another point.

For Protestants, the “authority” that the church has is the kind of authority that Moses and the judges of Israel held in the Old Testament.

* * *

You then posit the question:

the question fairly arises: How to explain the fact that many baptized, churchgoing people don’t agree about what the plain sense of Scripture is, or even that it’s always and necessarily inerrant even when agreed to be plain? If the proximate, formal object of faith can be clearly identified by a rationally unassailable set of inferences from the pertinent early sources, the primary one of which is assumed to be inerrant, does that tell us that those who don’t find that set rationally unassailable are either unlearned or willfully irrational?

This too is a false dilemma, unless you want to call God himself “either unlearned or willfully irrational” in setting up the paradigm he set up with Moses and the Israelites. God posits his own word as “plain”.

Your illustration from Anthony Lane presents itself as an instance of Judges 21:25: “Everyone did what was right in his own eyes”.

But even in 1530 Casper Schwenckfeld could cynically note that “the Papists damn the Lutherans; the Lutherans damn the Zwinglians; the Zwinglians damn the Anabaptists and the Anabaptists damn all others.” By the end of the seventeenth century many others saw that it was not possible on the basis of Scripture alone to build up a detailed orthodoxy commanding general assent. (A.N.S. Lane, “Scripture, Tradition and Church: An Historical Survey,” Vox Evangelica, Volume IX – 1975, pp. 44, 45).

But this, too, is a false dilemma. First, in the Old Testament, God himself permitted such a situation to occur; in this case, the Roman paradigm is guilty of exceeding what God has done with regard to “interpretive paradigms”. Second, as Steven Wedgeworth has argued (and I’ve argued similarly),

The evangelical doctrine of the universal priesthood has become merely nominal in many Reformed churches, which is why a number of Reformed people are predisposed to admiration of Rome. We need to reaffirm this fundamental doctrine, and its corollary of the representative character of the ministry. We must become more truly Calvinian on this score, by becoming more “Lutheran” and less clericalist. We should reject false definitions of the unity of the church, and recognize its actual unity on the ground, which underlies all the legitimate congregational forms and their modes of denominational association. We must also recognize the liberty of the Christian people to freely gather around the Word as center, without artificial ecclesial borders being enforced and policed by a clergy claiming a divine right authority. If the Smith family has good reason to be at St. Adiaphoron Lutheran Church, and their neighbors the Jones family has good reason to be at Putting Green Presbyterian across the street from it, so far from being a scandal, this is actually a fine thing.

Where all of this practically takes us is what many political scientists and historians have described as the culture of persuasion. We do not look to a political institution or other coercive power to artificially provide unity and certainty. There is no magic “key” to unity in external diversity. Rather, we respect the rights of conscience and seek to persuade others through the right use of reason and Biblical exegesis, confident that freedom and charity lead to the only unity worth having.