1. In classic Protestant theology, Scripture has four attributes: necessity, sufficiency, clarity, and authority. And these are related to the case for sola scriptura.
2. As I've often remarked, it's important to distinguish between traditional theological positions and traditional supporting arguments. With the benefit of hindsight, we might conclude that a traditional supporting argument isn't very good, but maintain the traditional position. We might replace an old argument with a new argument. There are sometimes opportunities to improve our case. Some apologists try too hard to defend a traditional argument rather than defending the traditional position. But the point of a supporting argument is to defend the position in question.
3. The sufficiency of Scripture overlaps with sola scriptura. Those are closely related concepts. If Scripture is sufficient, then Scripture is all you need (for whatever Scripture is sufficient for).
4. By contrast, perspicuity is more like a supporting argument for sola scriptura. The substantive position is sola scriptura whereas perspicuity is more of a justification.
It's possible that the Protestant Reformers exaggerated or oversimplified the clarity of Scripture. If so, that admission is not a fatal concession. My Protestant faith is not invested in perspicuity since there is no real alternative. If the Catholic alternative is false, then the justification of sola scriptura is independent of Scripture's clarity. If there is no Magisterium, no divine teaching office in the Catholic church, then that moots debates over the clarity of Scripture. The alternative to sola scriptura is a chimerical ideal.
5. This doesn't mean perspicuity is entirely irrelevant to the case for sola scriptura. If the Bible was pervasively ambiguous or incomprehensible, then it couldn't function as a moral and theological guide. However, perspicuity is a diverse concept.
6. In my experience, when Catholic apologists attack the clarity of Scripture, what they sometimes mean is that Scripture is unclear because it fails answer certain questions posed to it by the reader, viz. What words should be used at a baptismal ceremony? What kind of bread should be used for communion bread? Leavened or unleavened? Wheat? What about cornbread or rice cakes?
The unclarity due not to what is stated but to what is left unstated. A Catholic apologist can always concoct a stipulative definition of perspicuity, although he can't impose that on evangelicals.
However, that objection to the clarity of Scripture begs the question. Perspicuity is only defective if we're supposed to have a particular answer to such questions. One right answer. If God requires that of us. If it's necessary to discharge our moral or religious duties. If, however, we're not responsible for having a definitive answer, then its not a deficiency of Scripture that it lacks clarity on that definition.
7. Another way a text (or speech) might be unclear is if the author has expressed himself obscurely. This differs from the definition in (6). On this definition, it doesn't leave the question unanswered; rather, it provides an answer but the answer is obscure. The writer may provided a detailed exposition or explanation but it's hard to understand. And there are variations on this definition:
i) Studied obscurities. The writings of James Joyce are intentionally obscure. He makes great demands on the reader. But he knows exactly what he's doing. It's not incomprehensible in principle. Rather, it requires specialized background knowledge
ii) By contrast, a text (or speech) might be obscure because the author is a poor communicator. The problem lies at his end rather than the reader's end.
8. Perspicuity involves a relation between the communicator and the audience. In that regard, there can be degrees of clarity or unclarity. Take an article in a physics journal or medical journal. That might be perspicuous to a reader with the requisite understanding of physics or medical science, but incomprehensible to a reader who lacks the requisite understanding of physics or medical science. They physicist may express himself with utter clarity, but what he writes is unintelligible to the uninitiated. So perspicuity has an objective side and a subjective side. Both author and reader have responsibilities.
9. On a related note, perspicuity is not a static property:
i) A text or statement may become more clear or less clear to the reader. As a kid I used to watch Laugh-In. That contained lots of topical political satire. But the jokes have become obscure with the passage of time because the references are so ephemeral.
ii) Conversely, a text may become clearer. I understand an annotated edition of a Shakespeare play better than the straight text.
10. The salient question is whether the Bible is it clear enough to achieve its divinely intended purpose. God has different purposes for different readers.
Steve knows this, but some Catholic readers might not. The perspicuity of Scripture, as the Reformers conceived of it, has to do with the essentials for salvation. That's why the 1646 Westminster Confession of Faith says:
ReplyDelete//All things in Scripture are not alike plain in themselves, nor alike clear unto all; yet those things which are necessary to be known, believed, and observed, for salvation, are so clearly propounded and opened in some place of Scripture or other, that not only the learned, but the unlearned, in a due use of the ordinary means, may attain unto a sufficient understanding of them.//
The 1689 London Baptist Confession of Faith says almost exactly the same thing.
//All things in Scripture are not alike plain in themselves, nor alike clear unto all; yet those things which are necessary to be known, believed and observed for salvation, are so clearly propounded and opened in some place of Scripture or other, that not only the learned, but the unlearned, in a due use of ordinary means, may attain to a sufficient understanding of them.//
//In my experience, when Catholic apologists attack the clarity of Scripture, what they sometimes mean is that Scripture is unclear because it fails answer certain questions posed to it by the reader, viz. What words should be used at a baptismal ceremony? What kind of bread should be used for communion bread? Leavened or unleavened? Wheat? What about cornbread or rice cakes? //
Some Catholic complaints remind me of Muslim complaints about how lacking or unclear the Bible and Christianity is because they don't tell us how to do things like eat or defecate. In Islam they "know" to eat with their right hands [two fingers and the thumb] and clean their butts with the their left hands. To enter a washroom with their left foot, and exist with their right.