Amillennialism and the Age to Come—A Critical Review # 7

Amillennialism and the Age to Come—A Critical Review # 7

by | May 22, 2017 | Book Reviews, Eschatology

Part 1, Part 2, Part 3, Part 4, Part 5, Part 6

Second Criticism:  Hermeneutical Priority Must Be Given to the New Testament over the Old Testament and the More Literal New Testament Passages over the More Figurative. (Continued.)

In my last post I said that in a very real sense Waymeyer’s book constitutes an emphatic denial of (what I thought were) self-evident hermeneutical principles.  Those principles were that clear passages must be given priority over difficult passages, literal passages over figurative passages, and general truths about eschatology before the details of prophecy.  He does this by giving hermeneutical priority to Old Testament prophecy and Revelation 20 over the teaching of the New Testament.  I am incredulous, but let me respond to Waymeyer with something more than incredulity.

First, let me affirm a concern of Waymeyer’s which I believe has some validity.  He says: “The second problem concerns the use of the two-age model as an interpretive grid.” (9)  He warns that such a use of the two-age model “silences the contribution of those passages by forcing them to conform to his theological system.”  He adds: “In this way, systematic theology is used to determine exegesis rather than vice versa.” (9)  In general, it seems to me, this is a fair warning with regard to the use of the hermeneutical principle known as the analogy of faith.  Care must be taken not to silence the richness of divine revelation by a too facile assumption that we know what Scripture cannot say in light of our understanding of other indisputable truths of Scripture.  Divine revelation is greater and more mysterious than our finite and fallen minds may realize.  No doubt, the analogy of faith has been abused by those who have deduced contradictions where there was only supplementation by other plain truths of Scripture.  This is a danger of which Systematicians must always beware.

The real danger in our day, however, is the tendency of Evangelicals to interpret Scripture in a way uninformed by historical theology and detached from any recognizable systematic theology.  Thus, the danger about which Waymeyer warns is probably not the greatest danger we face today.  Instances could be multiplied of interpretations of biblical passages which simply refuse to confront the practical contradictions they impose on ordinary Christians.  One reputable theologian argues that the exegesis of Hebrews 3, 6, and 10 teaches the apostasy of genuine Christians.  Yet he refuses to show how this is consistent with other passages that teach the opposite and even refuses to interpret those passages in a way consistent with their exegesis of Hebrews.

Listen to Calvin R. Schoonhoven in the article entitled, “The Analogy of Faith,” in Scripture, Tradition, and Interpretation (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1978), 105: “Although the “analogy-of-faith” devotee may assert that whatever these texts say they cannot teach that a “saved” person could be forever lost so as never again to be able to experience repentance, this is precisely what is taught here.  These statements must not be interpreted in the context of other teachings; they must be interpreted in the context of Hebrews and from the perspective of this writer.  Such strong words should not be interpreted by some sort of “illumination” from other passages.”

Such exegesis is simply irresponsible.  The goal of all Christian teaching is to teach Christians to observe all that Christ commanded (Matthew 28:18-20).  It is simply impossible for the ordinary Christian to practice a theological contradiction.

This is not, of course, the practical error into which Waymeyer falls.  He believes that ultimately Scripture is self-consistent.  He actually uses the analogy of faith himself to argue that Revelation 20 must expand our understanding of Luke 20 and what we might naturally conclude it means.  (105)  I say these things, however, because we all need to remember the necessity and responsibility of providing a coherent interpretation of Scripture to the Christian church.  We may not wave aside the analogy of faith in our hermeneutics.  It is in principle perfectly legitimate for Amillennialists to argue that the clear teaching of clear Scriptures require something other than a Premillennial interpretation of Revelation 20.  If, for instance, the New Testament teaches—as it assuredly does—a general judgment of all men living and dead at Christ’s Second Coming issuing in the eternal state, then whatever Revelation 20 teaches it cannot teach Premillennialism.  I think that it is plain that the New Testament does teach such a general judgment in many places and in clear language and that such a judgment is legitimately part of the analogy of faith by which the interpretation of Revelation 20 must be controlled.

Part 8

Brief survey of the history of hermeneutics – 12. Post-Reformation Reformed Orthodoxy (I)

by | Jun 4, 2011 | Hermeneutics, Historical Theology

Brief survey of the history of hermeneutics – 11. Renaissance and Reformation

The theological methodology of the post-Reformation Reformed orthodox: The theological methodology of the post-Reformation Reformed orthodox was, in the first place, exegetical. In order to get a firmer grip on their methodology, we will examine it from the vantage point of what it is not – 1. a hyper-syllogistic method; 2. an Aristotelian, rationalistic method; and 3. a universal method – and what it is – 4. a pre-critical method; 5. an exegetically-based method; 6. a redemptive-historically sensitive method; and 7. a multi-sourced method. The last four mentioned methodological characteristics are especially visible in the writings of John Owen, one of the premiere post-Reformation Reformed scholastics.[1] 

 1.      Not a Hyper-Syllogistic Method: Their method was not reduced to syllogistic argumentation ad nauseam. In fact, Muller claims that “[f]ew of the orthodox or scholastic Protestants lapsed into constant or exclusive recourse to syllogism as a method of exposition.”[2] Syllogistic argumentation was utilized, but mostly in polemic contexts and not as an exegetical tool. Logic–the science of necessary inference–was utilized by the Reformed orthodox in the drawing out of good and necessary conclusions from the text of Scripture,[3] but it was a servant and not lord of the interpreter. Muller says that “the drawing of logical conclusions appears as one of the final hermeneutical steps in the [Reformed orthodox exegetical] method…”[4]

 2.      Not an Aristotelian, Rationalistic Method: The Protestant scholasticism of the post-Reformation era must be distinguished from rationalism. The Reformed orthodox did not place human reason above, or even equal to, divine revelation.[5] The place and function of reason was subordinate to the authority of Scripture. Reason was an instrument not an axiomatic principle.[6] The Protestant scholastics utilized a modified (or Christian) Aristotelianism “that had its beginnings in the thirteenth century.”[7] Muller explains:

It is important to recognize what this use entailed and what it did not. The Christian Aristotelianism of the Protestant orthodox drew on rules of logic and devices such as the fourfold causality in order to explain and develop their doctrinal formulae—and only seldom, if ever, to import a full-scale rational metaphysics or physics into their theology. Contrary to what is sometimes claimed, the fourfold causality (i.e., first, formal, material, and final causes) does not imply a particular metaphysic. Specifically, it is not by nature “determinis­tic.” One can use the model to delineate the soteriological patterns of the eternal decree of God and its execution in time; one can also use the model to describe the sources and effects of human sinfulness and human moral conduct; or one can use the model to explain how a car­penter makes a table. The large-scale result of Christian Aristotelianism was not, in other words, a fundamentally Aristotelian Christianity: Aristotle would have disowned this hybrid philosophy with its infinite God who created the world out of nothing! There was, certainly, less imposition of rational metaphysics on theology in the seventeenth-century orthodox affirmations of divine eternity, omniscience, and immutability than there is in the twentieth-century claims of a changing God whose very being is in flux and who lacks foreknowledge of future contingency![8]

Van Asselt says, “[the] facile equation of Scholasticism and Aristotelianism is no longer tenable.”[9]

3.      Not a Universal Method: As well, simply because an author utilized the scholastic method in some of his writings did not mean he used it in all of them. For instance, Muller offers Beza as an example.[10] Elsewhere, Muller says, “In the cases of Perkins, Ames, Voetius, and Baxter, works of piety and works of scholastic theology emanated from the same pens.”[11] Muller goes on to say:

…there is no clear division between Protestant scholasticism and federal theology. Theologians who wrote works of piety that followed a “positive” or “catechetical” method also wrote more technical and academic works using the scholastic method – and many of the scholastic, as well as “positive” works were covenantal in their theology.[12]

This observation applies to Johannes Cocceius and John Owen. Owen utilized the scholastic method in some treaties and a more practical, pastoral approach in others. Both Cocceius and Owen utilized the federal model as well as the loci model. Also, within the body of Owen’s Biblical Theology, he utilizes the scholastic method but also ridicules it.[13] This obviously shows that Owen could use a method he fully realized was abused by others and that the scholastic method was just that–a method and not a theology.

 4.      A Pre-Critical Method: The Reformed orthodox obviously predate the Enlightenment and the critical assault on the Holy Scriptures. The Enlightenment gave birth to, among other things, a rationalistic approach to the interpretation of Scripture. This can be seen, for instance, in the early developments of biblical theology.[14] Typical Enlightenment rationalism and anti-supernaturalism is evidenced in the following statements made by Benjamin Jowett, a Greek professor at Oxford in the mid-nineteenth century. David C. Steinmetz quotes Jowett and comments:

Jowett argued that “Scripture has one meaning–the meaning which it had in the mind of the Prophet or Evangelist who first uttered or wrote, to the hearers or readers who first received it.”[15] Scripture should be interpreted like any other book and the later accretions and venerated traditions surrounding its interpretation should, for the most part, either be brushed aside or severely discounted. “The true use of interpretation is to get rid of interpretation, and leave us alone in company with the author.”[16]

 

Jowett obviously reduces meaning to the intent of the human author alone. In critical hermeneutical theory, there was no room whatsoever for the medieval concept of “double literal sense”[17] or for the Reformation and post-Reformation concepts of sensus literalis (literal sense), analogia Scripturae (analogy of Scripture), analogia fidei (analogy of faith), and scopus Scripturae (scope of Scripture).[18] In post-modern thought, man, the reader, is king of interpretation; in the modern/Enlightenment theory man, the author, was. In the Middle Ages, however, and in the Reformation and post-Reformation eras, though through differing hermeneutical principles, the meaning of Scripture was not determined by the human author’s intent alone or the reader. Ultimately, the meaning of Scripture was determined by God, the author of Scripture.[19]

 5.      An Exegetically-Based Method[20]: Though the Reformed orthodox were confessionally one in a historical sense (i.e., the Belgic Confession, the Heidelberg Catechism, the Canons of Dordt, and in Britain in the Westminster Assembly’s Confession of Faith and Larger and Shorter Catechisms, Savoy Declaration, Second London Confession of Faith), this did not mean they viewed the exegetical task as complete and, therefore, unnecessary, nor that there was no room for disagreement over the exegesis of individual texts. Muller comments:

the biblicism of the seventeenth-century orthodox must not be read as an era of dogmatizing exegesis devoid of careful textual analysis and devoid of any variety in interpretation among those of an orthodox confessional persuasion. Instead, the age ought to be viewed as the great age of Protestant linguistic study and Judaica, of the textual analysis that led to such monumental productions as the London Polyglot Bible. …the Protestant orthodoxy must be recognized as producing highly varied and diverse exegetical works and commentaries, ranging from text-critical essays, to textual annotations, theological annotations, linguistic commentaries based on the study of cognate languages and Judaica, doctrinal and homiletical commentaries, and, indeed, all manner of permutations and combinations of these several types of effort.[21]

Biblical exegesis, in fact, experienced a revival of sorts within the Reformed orthodox of the seventeenth century. Muller says:

Contrary to much of the “received wisdom” concerning the seventeenth century, the era of orthodoxy was a time of great exegetical, textual, and linguistic development in Protestantism–and, indeed, it was the orthodox exegetes who were responsible for the major monuments to biblical scholarship.[22]

Carl R. Trueman says, “…the seventeenth century witnessed a remarkable flourishing of linguistic and exegetical studies, driven by both the positive and the polemical exigencies of Protestantism’s commitment to scripture, in the original languages, as being the very Word – and words – of God.”[23] Trueman continues elsewhere:

A high view of the authority and integrity of the biblical text as God’s word written was [a] major factor in fuelling the development of careful attention both to the biblical languages and other cognate tongues, and to issues of textual history and criticism. The idea that the seventeenth-century Reformed were interested neither in careful exegesis nor in the literary and linguistic contexts of the Bible is simply untrue. Indeed, the linguistic and exegetical work of this century was far more elaborate than that which had marked the earlier Reformation. …the exegesis of the Reformed Orthodox is far from the dogmatically-driven Procusteanism[24] [sic] of popular mythology.[25]

 6.      A Redemptive-Historically Sensitive Method: Not only were the Reformed orthodox exegetically driven, their hermeneutic was a whole-Bible hermeneutic, evidenced in such concepts as their highly nuanced view of sensus literalis (literal sense), analogia Scripturae (analogy of Scripture), analogia fidei (analogy of faith), and scopus Scripturae (scope of Scripture).[26] It is of vital importance to understand the nuances involved with these concepts in order to properly understand the Reformed orthodox. We will explore these concepts in our next post.

[1] We will discuss Owen below.

[2] Muller, “Calvin and the “Calvinists”,” I:369.

[3] Cf. Muller, PRRD, II:497-500 for a discussion of the use of logic in interpretation.

[4] Muller, PRRD, II:501.

[5] Cf. WCF 1:10 for confessional embodiment to this conviction.

[6] Muller, “Calvin and the “Calvinists”,” I:374.

[7] Muller, “Sources of Reformed Orthodoxy,” 55. Cf. van Asselt, “The Fundamental Meaning of Theology,” 322, where he says that the Reformed theology of the late sixteenth century (i.e., Franciscus Junius) critically received the Christian tradition.

[8] Muller, “Sources of Reformed Orthodoxy,” 55.

[9] van Asselt, “The Fundamental Meaning of Theology,” 329, n. 42.

[10] Muller, “Calvin and the “Calvinists”,” I:370.

[11] Muller, “Calvin and the “Calvinists”,” II:145.

[12] Muller, “Calvin and the “Calvinists”,” II:146.

[13] Cf. Rehnman, Divine Discourse, Chapter 4, “Faith and Reason,” especially the sections “The Abuse of Reason in Theology” and “A Contextual Line of Explanation,” 119-28 and the “Conclusion” to my dissertation.

[14] See below.

[15] Benjamin Jowett, “On the Interpretation of Scripture,” Essays and Reviews, 7th ed. (London: Longman, Green, Longman and Roberts, 1861), 378, quoted in David C. Steinmetz, “The Superiority of Pre-Critical Exegesis,” Theology Today (April 1980): 27.

[16] Steinmetz is quoting Jowett, “On the Interpretation of Scripture,” 384. Cf. Steinmetz, “The Superiority of Pre-Critical Exegesis,” 27.

[17] Steinmetz, “The Superiority of Pre-Critical Exegesis,” 31.

[18] We will discuss these below.

[19] This, of course, does not imply that pre-critical exegesis always arrived at God’s meaning of the text. Cf. Packer, Quest for Godliness, 98, for a brief discussion of the Puritans as pre-modern exegetes.

[20] Cf. Muller, “Sources of Reformed Orthodoxy,” 46-48; Muller, PRRD, II:482ff; Packer, Quest for Godliness, 98; and Thomas D. Lea, “The Hermeneutics of the Puritans,” JETS 39/2 (June 1996): 273.

[21] Muller, “Calvin and the “Calvinists”,” II:132-33.

[22] Muller, “Sources of Reformed Orthodoxy,” 46.

[23] Trueman, John Owen, 8-9.

[24] Tending to produce conformity by violent or arbitrary means.

[25] Trueman, John Owen, 37; Cf. Muller, PRRD, II:482ff. for a fascinating discussion of the practice of exegesis among the Reformed orthodox.

[26] Packer lists six governing principles of interpretation for the English Puritans: 1. Interpret Scripture literally and grammatically. 2. Interpret Scripture consistently and harmonistically. 3. Interpret Scripture doctrinally and theocentrically. 4. Interpret Scripture christologically and evangelically. 5. Interpret Scripture experimentally and practically. 6. Interpret Scripture with a faithful and realistic application. Cf. Packer, Quest for Godliness, 101-5. Cf. Barry Howson, “The Puritan Hermeneutics of John Owen: A Recommendation,” WTJ 63 (2001): 354-57.

Brief survey of the history of hermeneutics – 11. Renaissance and Reformation

by | May 27, 2011 | Hermeneutics, Historical Theology

The Renaissance: The Renaissance was a very complex humanist movement within Europe during the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries. Two of the most important contributions it gave to the Reformation were a return to critical scholarship and philology. What the Renaissance gave to the Reformation, then, was an academic climate of questioning the status quo and seeking to arrive at conclusions based on primary documents. Pelikan comments:

The insistence of humanistic scholars on an understanding of the biblical text based on a fresh reading of the Hebrew and Greek originals …acted as a catalyst in the reconsideration of the doctrine of authority during the age of the Reformation.[1]

This insistence led to the study of Hebrew and Greek grammar, the study of Augustine, and most importantly, the study of Paul and the Bible.

The Reformation: The Reformation was both a break with the negative elements of the past (especially the late medieval doctrine of ecclesiastical authority and the system of human merit theology) and a continuation of the discussion that had been taking place from the beginning. The Bible took center stage at the Reformation due, in part, to the influence of the Renaissance. With this came a renewed interest in Bible interpretation and historical theology, both from primary sources. The maxim ad fontes[2] produced intensified study in the original sources of the Christian tradition – the Bible first and foremost and, secondarily, the Apostolic Fathers, Patristics, and Augustine.

Neither Luther nor Calvin invented or discovered doctrines that had never been discussed before.[3] Luther’s discovery of the gospel of justification sola fide was, first and foremost, a biblical doctrine and a doctrine that all true Christians had believed from the beginning. It had been eclipsed by a system of human merit theology and sacerdotalism, but this does not mean that it never existed prior to Luther.

Calvin was no innovator himself. He built his system of theology on his understanding of Christian Scripture controlled by “the rule of faith.” He produced commentaries that are still influential in our day. The Reformers saw themselves as part of a long line of Christian interpreters, utilizing what they could from previous generations and repudiating, sometimes viciously, what they could not. Though Calvin sought to be a corrector of what he viewed as wrong with elements of the past, on the main, he assumed into his interpretive method the method handed down to him by his university professors – the scholastic method, in distinction from scholastic theology (more on this below).

Mention has been made of how some view the history of Christian interpretation in a mostly negative light. This assessment is, primarily, a post-Enlightenment phenomenon. David Steinmetz, in his book Calvin in Context, discusses Calvin’s interpretation of Isaiah 6:1ff. in the light of the history of interpretation prior to Calvin.[4] Prior to his discussion of the history of interpretation and Isaiah’s text, he notes this about F. W. Farrar.

In 1885 Frederic W. Farrar, chaplain to Queen Victoria and later Dean of Canterbury, delivered the Bampton Lecutres at Oxford on the subject of the history of interpretation. The book is a triumph of what the late Sir Herbert Butterfield of Cambridge called “Whig” historiography. Farrar admired about the past precisely those elements in it most like the present and regarded the present, indeed, as the inevitable culmination of all that was best in the past. The history of exegesis became for Farrar the history of “more or less untenable” conceptions of the Bible, “a history of false suppositions slowly and progressively corrected.” Not surprisingly, Farrar admired Antioch over Alexandria, Luther over Thomas Aquinas, Calvin over Luther, and the moderns [Enlightenment/post-Enlightenment interpreters] over all. Farrar catalogued with obvious delight every strained allegory, every factual inaccuracy, every philological howler committed by precritical exegetes in the name of biblical interpretation. While he admitted that ancient commentaries are full of practical instruction aimed at moral and spiritual edification and that much of this instruction is “of the highest intrinsic value,” he nevertheless warned that frequently such material “has but a slender connexion with the text on which it is founded.”[5]

Steinmetz goes on to show that Calvin’s exegesis of the Isaiah pericope is very similar to the history of interpretation on this text and even goes so far as to say, “While the precritical exegesis of Isaiah 6 is not an exegesis we can simply adopt, it is still not accurate to regard it as arbitrary and strained, of value only for its homiletical asides.”[6] Steinmetz interacts with Farrar after his discussion of Calvin on Isaiah 6 and the history of precritical interpretation on this text:

It is difficult to recognize the exegesis of Isaiah 6 we have just examined in the general description of the history of exegesis which Farrar offered. To be sure, it is true that the older consensus on the historical-critical setting of Isaiah 6 would find few supporters among modern commentators, but the older discussion of these questions does not seem arbitrary or strained, even by modern standards. The judgment of Christian commentators that Isaiah saw the glory of Christ was an exegetical conclusion forced on the commentators by the New Testament itself, though there was a tendency on the part of some commentators–including Calvin–to soften the hard edges of that exegesis.[7]

Farrar assumed critical, Enlightenment categories while interpreting the history of interpretation. This gave his history a slant or bias in a certain direction and explains his overly negative assessment of most of what took place prior to the modern era. Steinmetz concludes:

It is no answer to Farrar to point out that there is a good deal in ancient commentaries which is surprisingly modern even from a historical-critical or philological viewpoint, or to argue that the modern reader can find insight into the “literal” sense of the text in precritical commentaries. That is to admit his principle that precritical exegesis is good in the proportion that it anticipates or agrees with modern exegesis. Nor is it an answer to reply with a tu quoque [Latin, “thou also”] and to list the exegetical atrocities which have been committed from time to time in the name of the historical-critical method, though such a list is disquietingly easy to compile.

The principal value of precritical exegesis is that it is not modern exegesis; it is alien, strange, sometimes even, from our perspective, comic and fantastical. Precisely because it is strange, it provides a constant stimulus to interpreters, offering exegetical suggestions they would never think of or find in any modern book, forcing them again and again to a rereading and reevaluation of the text. But if they immerse themselves not only in the text but also in these alien approaches to the text, they may learn in time to see with eyes not their own sights they could scarcely have imagined and may learn to hear with ears not their own voices too soft for their own ears to detect.[8]

Not only has this modern, Enlightenment mindset infected Farrar it has infected others who look down upon, not only the Reformers, but the post-Reformation Reformed orthodox, as we shall see next.

[1] Jaroslav Pelikan, Reformation of Church and Dogma (Chicago and London, University of Chicago Press, 1985), 8.

[2] Latin for to the sources.

[3] Cf. David C. Steinmetz, Luther in Context (Grand Rapids: Baker Books, 1995) and David C. Steinmetz, Calvin in Context (New York: Oxford University Press, 1995).

[4] Steinmetz, Calvin in Context, 95-109.

[5] Steinmetz, Calvin in Context, 95. Steinmetz is quoting from Fredric W. Farrar, History of Interpretation (Grand Rapids: Baker Book House, 1979).

[6] Steinmetz, Calvin in Context, 107.

[7] Steinmetz, Calvin in Context, 107.

[8] Steinmetz, Calvin in Context, 107.

Brief survey of the history of hermeneutics – 10. Middle Ages (III)

by | May 20, 2011 | Hermeneutics, Historical Theology

Scholasticism. One of the ways that Medieval Scholasticism influenced the Reformation was through the universities attended by the Reformers. Our modern university system evolved during the late Middle Ages. Luther was well-schooled in the scholastic method and philosophy. His utter contempt for Aristotle was no doubt an over-reaction to his university training and the element of superstition in much of late medieval scholasticism.[1] McGrath comments: 

Scholasticism is probably one of the most despised intellectual movements in human history. Thus the English word ‘dunce’ derives from the name of one of the greatest scholastic writers, Duns Scotus. Scholasticism is best regarded as the medieval movement, flourishing in the period 1200-1500, which placed great emphasis upon the rational justification of religious beliefs. It is the demonstration of the inherent rationality of Christian theology by an appeal to philosophy, and the demonstration of the complete harmony of that theology by the minute examination of the relationship of its various elements. Scholastic writings tended to be long and argumentative, frequently relying upon closely argued distinctions.[2]

Jaroslav Pelikan says, “The theological discussions of the period sometimes dealt with issues that did not directly involve the belief, teaching, and confession of the church.”[3] He goes on to list some of those theological discussions: whether a monk who died and then was resurrected would be obliged to return to the same religious order; whether or not the body of Christ after His resurrection had been able to digest food; whether or not Christ was alive when the lance pierced His side; the color of the Virgin Mary’s hair; the fact that Mary was conversant in the seven liberal arts, including astronomy, as well as with theology, as summarized in the Sentences of Peter Lombard.[4] Looking at it from this vantage-point, one can hardly blame Luther for his attitude toward Aristotelian scholastic theology, if in fact it can be said to be the catalyst of such speculation.

Though late medieval scholasticism had its faults, Calvin, for example, took the positive scholastic element of systemization and applied it in producing his Institutes of the Christian Religion.

[1] See David C. Steinmetz, Luther in Context (Grand Rapids: Baker Book House, 1995), 56, where Steinmetz says, “No historian would seriously dispute the proposition that Luther’s break with scholastic theology was primarily a break with the theology of his own Occamist teachers.”

[2] McGrath, A Life of John Calvin (Grand Rapids: Baker Book House, 1995 reprint), 40.

[3] Pelikan, Reformation, 13, 14.

[4] See Pelikan, Reformation, 38-50 for a synopsis of the development of late Medieval Mariology.

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