The Bible Made Impossible - Chapter 3(b)

Chapter 3 - Some Relevant History, Sociology, and Psychology
The first half of this chapter dealt with the historical roots of underlying philosophical assumptions in American biblicism (see previous post). In the second half of chapter 3, Christian Smith deals with what he believes are reasons why biblicists are not troubled by the fact that there are multiple, divergent interpretations of the same biblical texts by sincere and capable evangelicals while at the same time making the claim that the Bible is easy for anyone to understand and that it speaks with one unified voice.

Why Pervasive Interpretive Pluralism is Not More Troubling to Biblicists: Sociological and Psychological Conjectures


Smith suggests that if what he's presenting is true, there ought to be great concern over it among biblicists; however, for the most part, there is none. The following are his conjectures about why this might be (I will merely "scratch the surface" of what he says about each of these):

1. The structure of social networks among biblicists. The technical word for this in sociology is "homophily (love for and attraction to what is similar to oneself)...one of the strongest forces operating in social life." Because of this force, we tend to live in relatively small worlds with those with whom we feel comfortable. Consequently, we lose touch with the distinctive beliefs and lifestyles of people in other "worlds". This serves to bolster the biblicist's sense of being correct in his way of viewing Scripture and protects him from the "existential discomfort of having to deal with contradictory beliefs, values, and commitments that such ties normally entail." (This reality is true, of course, of all social networks, not only biblicists.)
2. The common tendency to minimize the real differences of interpretation and the importance of those differences. The claim that the disagreements are about minor issues is like a member of a conflict-ridden family telling a friend that her family gets along pretty well. It's a form of denial since "disagreements among biblicists (and other Bible-referring Christians) about what the Bible teaches on most issues, both essential and secondary matters, are many and profound. If biblicists hope to maintain intellectual honesty and internal consistency, they must acknowledge them and explain them."
3. Another possible reason for not being troubled by biblicism may be that being at odds with another group can actually give my group a sense of identity and importance. For example, the "Duke and North Carolina basketball programs need each other, even as they hate each other, simply to help promote the being and identity of Duke and NC." Smith argues that it is this reality that has given many American evangelical groups their vitality. If so, he says there are consequences for those groups involved:
1. Biblicists may subconsciously resist the idea settling their differences since they are dependent on those that don't agree with them to sustain their existence and sense of distinctiveness. (It's common that entire organized ministries are birthed around a particular "revelation" from Scripture, and that revelation is the group's distinctive identity; if all believers interpreted the Scripture in a similar way concerning this revelation, there would be no need for "my" ministry to exist.)
2. Secondly, the inevitable effect of building this "in-group identity and commitment difference from out-groups" is that they no longer take the claims and positions of those out-groups seriously; in other words, there's no genuine attempt or desire to understand or honor the others but rather, the point becomes one of remaining on guard so as not to be contaminated by the out-group nor allow them to gain influence.
3. Summarizing this point, Smith says, "...various Christian groups 'benefit' from conflict, disunity, and fragmentation...This...is highly problematic when considered in light of what the Bible says about Christian unity."
4.  Another possible reason could be fear of "ecumenism," which to many evangelicals sounds like liberal Protestantism which is considered bad. "Better...to be divided in absolute commitment to truth than to be unified in flaccid, liberal compromise...We may be utterly fragmented, biblicists tell themselves, but at least we have not compromised."
5. The final possible reason biblicists aren't troubled by the problem of "pervasive interpretive pluralism" falls more in the area of psychology than sociology. Smith suggests that there is a particular need within biblicism to create order and security in an environment that would otherwise be chaotic and in error. This aversion to disorder and falsehood is common among humans but stronger in some than in others. The author suspects that biblicism is attractive to many because of this fear. He proposes that the heritage that we have of the modernist-fundamentalist battles of the early 20th century could have a hidden effect on our desire to keep things orderly and certain.

While this chapter is the author's conjectures over the biblicist problem, I found it enlightening for me personally for two reasons: one, as I read this, I recognized that I have been participant in some of them - this caused me to cringe at times and to realize afresh my dependence on the great mercy and forgiveness of the Lord toward me; and second, it gave form to some things I've understood intuitively but haven't had confidence in. I am grateful for this.

Next week we'll move on to chapter four, which is the final chapter dealing with the problems of biblicism before going on to the "positive" second half of the book!

The Bible Made Impossible - Chapter 3(a)

In the first 2 chapers Christian Smith defined "biblicism" and made the case for why the countless ways of interpreting Scripture that pervades evangelicalism makes biblicism impossible. He goes to great lengths to back this up in a convincing way (to me), so again I encourage you to get the book if you want to dig deeper into this.

Chapter 3 was exciting for me personally because parts of it affirmed something that I've taught over the years related to Scripture - and that is that if my knowing God is based primarily on figuring out with my mind what the written Word says, that will not be trustworthy because of the inability of any fallen human to interpret it in a purely objective way - there are many forces at work with each of us that shape the grid through which we read and interpret the Bible. Smith deals briefly with this reality in this chapter by looking at the impact of history, sociology, and psychology on our way of receiving information.

Chapter 3: "Some Relevant History, Sociology, and Psychology"

Philosophical Assumptions Underwriting American Biblicism

The author starts by presenting the historical roots to the philosophical assumptions that undergird American biblicism:
"Most crucial among them...are certain teachings of Charles Hodge (1797-1878) and Benjamin Warfield (1851-1921)...both highly influential professors at Princeton Theological Seminary. (Their) teachings were set within and governed by the then-reigning philosophy of Scottish commonsense realism and the Baconian inductive-empirical philosophy of science." Based on this assumption that the mind is capable of knowing words directly and that these words correctly represent the object being studied, Hodge "defined theology as a science whose method is to 'begin with collecting well-established facts, and from them to infer the general laws which determine their occurrence.'"

And so, according to Hodge, theology consists of "collecting the relevant facts from the Bible and inductively piecing them together...", guaranteeing that the biblical facts would be clear. The idea was to remove human subjectivity and let the facts speak for themselves. This represents a very optimistic view of human knowledge. One reason this approach was attractive to Hodge was that it was a way to have clear arguments against the attacks on the Bible in a time when German idealism and theological liberalism was growing. Warfield carried this on into the 20th century. Smith says of them, "...as their teachings later passed through the scorching flames of the modernist-fundamentalist battles of the early 20th century, it was often their weaker, more simplistic ideas that shaped the thinking of subsequent generations of evangelicals. The problematic influence of Hodge and Warfield on evangelical biblicism is evident today."

Smith then shows that this problem goes even further back to two centuries earlier with the Westminster Confession of Faith. (Smith recommends a book by Carlos Bovell, "By Good and Necessary Consequences", which is a genealogical study of biblicist foundationalism. In it Bovell points out that the clause entitled "by good and necessary consequences" in the Westminster Confession of Faith contributes an important plank that supports today's evangelical biblicism, and that this clause was not inherited from the early church fathers...but was devised by the creators of the confession of faith in response to wide-spread 17th century philosophical skepticism. It was this context that drove the Protestant theologians of that day to get their theological knowlege from scriptural propositions and logical deductions - it is this approach that we have inherited in modern evangelical biblicism.

In other words, the philosophical underpinnings of biblicism are largely based on the reaction of the Church to attacks on the Bible, starting in the 17th century but coming into full bloom in the late 19th century and early 20th century.

The author is quick to warn that this doesn't mean that the solution is to resort to "Kantian idealism, arbitrary subjectivism, or theological liberalism." Later in the book Smith proposes a better alternative that he contends is a truly evangelical way of approaching Scripture.

I'll finish this chapter in a day or two - we'll look at what Smith believes are reasons why biblicists aren't troubled by pervasive pluralistic interpretations of the Bible...

The Bible Made Impossible - Chapter 2

Chapter 2 - "The Extent and Source of Pervasive Interpretive Pluralism"

This chapter takes what the author said in chapter one to another level; his purpose is to convince the reader of how far-reaching the problem of multiple and different interpretations of the same Bible is and why the biblicist claims (see chapter one for biblicism assumptions) don't hold up in light of this. Because it's more or less an amplifying of part of chapter one, I will give a greatly reduced summary of the chapter and would encourage you to read it for yourself if you want to understand his argument more fully. It's well worth the read.

"The many four-views and three-views books noted in the previous chapter address only some of the myriad issues, topics, doctrines, and questions about which Christians - including biblicists - disagree on biblical grounds...many biblicists seem accustomed to easily ignoring or dismissing the 'biblical' convictions of others who read the Bible differently than they happen to, or to minimizing those disparities by suggesting that they are only slight variations on what are commonly shared Bible-based interpretations and convictions. Yet the differences cannot be ignored, dismissed, or minimized. They are real and concern important matters." Some of his examples of these differences:

1. Church polity (how should a local congregation be governed?).  "The Christian church today exists in the fragmented form of literally untold thousands of denominations, dioceses, conventions, and individual congregations..."
2. Free will and predestination. "Each side is certain that its view is biblical, yet holds its position at the expense of having to exert mighty efforts to reinterpret away the rather plain meaning of the Bible passages that seem to support the other side."
3. The morality of slavery.  "Previous decades (before the Civil War) of heated debate by biblical scholars and ministers who trusted the Bible as God's authoritative word simply could not resolve the conflict by an appeal to the divine texts." Abraham Lincoln observed that people on both sides of the conflict "read the same Bible and pray to the same God."
4. Gender difference and equality. "...different contemporary books reading the same biblical texts come to very different, often contradictory conclusions."
5. Wealth, prosperity, poverty, blessing.  "Some say the Bible teaches material prosperity...as blessings from God for faithfulness...Others that the Bible teaches the need for voluntary simplicity or poverty...Yet others that the Bible teaches a prudent responsibility and balance concerning money..."
6. War, peace, and non-violence. "...the good news of the evangelical Mennonite is very, very different from the good news of the conservative Republican evangelical."
7. Charismatic gifts. "Each side marshals lots of Bible verses to argue its case, and each ends up, in my view, making a fairly convincing case."
8. Atonement and justification. "At the heart of Christian faith stands the cross on which Christ died for the salvation of the world...But what exactly did the cross - presumably along with the incarnation and resurrection - accomplish? Christians have appealed to Scripture and disagreed about this for 2,000 years..."
9. Etc., etc.

Smith continues by proposing six likely responses to this problem of the pervasiveness of multiple interpretations of biblical texts:

1. Some would argue that most Christians study the Bible with "problematic motives, interests, or skills that prevent them from seeing the coherent truth"; or, said more bluntly, "We are right and the rest, unfortunately, are wrong." Smith labels this the "blame-the-deficient-readers answer."
2. Some might say that none of this would apply to the "original autographs" of the original manuscripts written by the hands of their first authors...Smith calls this the "lost-original-autographs explanation."
3. Others could say that sin has so damaged humans' capacity for inner thought and knowledge that we cannot see the single truth in the Bible clearly enough...Smith calls this the "noetically-damaged-reader reply."
4. Another speculative possible response could be that God only gives understanding of biblical truth to some, not all; or the negative side of this - that Satan has such a hold in some Christians' lives that they can't properly read the Bible. Smith calls this the "supernatural-confusion explanation."
5. Still another reply might be that the different interpretations "represent something like the different parts of the proverbial elephant touched and reported on by the ten Indian blind men - each is right in his own way, but to get the full truth they need to put all their knowledge together." Smith labels this the "inclusive-higher-synthesis response."
6. Finally, some could suggest that God has purposely made Scripture ambiguous in order to cause disagreement so that we would have to learn humility and openness...Smith labels this the "purposefully-ambiguous-revelation thesis."

The author agrees that some of these responses may be correct. But his point is that given the biblicist assumptions, these biblicist responses should be unacceptable to the biblicist.

He goes ahead to explain this in detail and concludes at the end of this chapter that the Bible "consists of irreducibly multivocal (i.e., it can and does speak to different listeners in different voices that appear to say different things), polysemic (multiple meanings), and multivalent (many appeals or values) texts...To deny the multivocality of scripture is to live in a self-constructed world of unreality."

On to chapter three next week: "Some Relevant History, Sociology, and Psychology." God bless you this week!

The Bible Made Impossible - Chapter 1(b)

Chapter 1 (part b) - Biblicism and the Problem of Pervasive Interpretive Pluralism"

We'll look now at the second half of this chapter and Christian Smith's dealing with what he sees as problems with "pervasive interpretive pluralism."

What the author is referring to is the reality that "the very same Bible - which biblicists insist is perspicuous (clear) and harmonious - gives rise to divergent understandings among intelligent, sincere, committed readers about what it says about most topics of interest. Knowledge of 'biblical' teachings, in short, is characterized by pervasive interpretive pluralism."  In other words, while the biblicist insists in theory that Scripture is clear and that anyone can understand it, the reality is that we all read the same Bible but come up with very different understanding and interpretations on the same topic.

This is a problem that has been acknowledged by many evangelical writers/scholars over the years. Smith quotes several respected Bible scholars such as Geoffrey Bromiley, Mark Noll,  N.T. Wright, D.A. Carson, and more - all of whom acknowledge that our claims that Scripture is authoritative while not being able to arrive at anything like agreement on what it says is self-defeating.  (N.T. Wright says, "It seems to be the case that the more you insist that you are based on the Bible, the more fissiparous (divisive) you become; the church splits up into more and more little groups, each thinking that they have got the biblical truth right.")

Smith suggests that rather than deal with this problem seriously, we have preferred to try to make this into a "virtue" by presenting our divergent viewpoints in popular books about "Three Views...", "Four Views...", etc. Some examples:

• The Nature of Atonement: Four Views
• Four Views of Hell
• Divorce and Remarriage: Four Views
• Women in Ministry: Four Views
• Four Views of the End Times
• Science and Christianity: Four Views
• Three Views on the Rapture
• Five Views on Apologetics
• etc., etc.

The very existence of so many of these types of books bears out the fact that "the Bible apparently is not clear, consistent, and univocal enough to enable the best-intentioned, most highly skilled, believing readers to come to agreement as to what it teaches..."

(The author challenges the well-known mantra, "In essentials, unity; in nonessentials, liberty; in all things, charity" saying that "there simply is not unity on many essentials"; in fact, "...not only are Christians divided about essential matters of doctrine and faithful practice; they are also sometimes divided on what even counts as essential.")

The chapter concludes with this question: "if the Bible is given by a truthful and omnipotent God as an internally consistent and perspicuous text precisely for the purpose of revealing to humans correct beliefs, practices, and morals, then why is it that the presumably sincere Christians to whom it has been given cannot read it and come to common agreement about what it teaches?" 

Next week we'll cover chapter 2 which deals with the extent and source of pervasive interpretive pluralism...

The Bible Made Impossible - Chapter 1(a)

As we start into the first chapter of this book, my prayer once again is that we can see light in His light. This is my continual prayer as we go through this book together... because of the length of these chapters, I may send them in two parts in the course of a week. This particular post will cover the first half of chapter one. Because of the nature of this book, I encourage you to hang in there through the entire book in order to understand the message of the book; although at first the author may suggest things that go against what we're used to, he's actually fighting for the Bible to be understood in a truly evangelical way.

Chapter 1: "Biblicism and the Problem of Pervasive Interpretive Pluralism"

Christian Smith deals with two main issues in this chapter: a) what he means by "biblicism", and b) the problems there are with "pervasive interpretive pluralism".

A. Biblicism
Smith gives the definition of biblicism that he is working with throughout this book, acknowledging that the word "biblicism" means different things to different people. In his use of the word he is referring to a particular theory and style of using the Bible, which is made up of a constellation of assumptions and beliefs related to the Bible's nature and purpose and function. This constellation is made up of 9 basic assumptions or beliefs which result in a 10th summary viewpoint:
1.  Divine writing - the details of the Bible's words consists of and is identical to God's very own words written inerrantly in human language.
2.  Total representation - the Bible represents the totality of God's communication to and His will for humanity...
3.  Complete coverage - God's will about all relevant issues to Christian belief and life is contained in the Bible.
4.  Democratic perspicuity - any reasonably intelligent person can read Scripture in his/her language and understand correctly the plain meaning of the text.
5.  Commonsense hermeneutics - we best understand the Bible texts by reading them in their explicit, plain, literal sense as the author intended them (which may or may not take account of their literary, cultural, and historical contexts).
6.  Solo Scriptura - theological formations can be built directly out of the Bible from scratch with no need of any other help such as creeds, confessions, historical traditions, etc.
7.  Internal harmony - all related Bible passages about a particular subject fit together into a unified and internally consistent body of instructions for correct or incorrect beliefs and behavior.
8.  Universal applicability - whatever the authors taught God's people at any point in history applies universally for all believers at every time, unless explicitly revoked by subsequent scriptural teaching.
9.  Inductive method - all issues of Christian belief and practice can be learned by piecing together through careful study the clear "biblical" truths that it teaches.

These 9 assumptions or beliefs generate a 10th viewpoint that is common in popular biblicist belief and practice:

10. Handbook model - the Bible teaches doctrine and morals in its affirmations, and these affirmations together comprise sort of a manual or handbook for Christian belief and living, covering an array of topics from science to economics to health to romance, etc.

The author goes on to explain that different persons and groups emphasize and express a variety of these points in different ways, so his point isn't to say that biblicism is a unified doctrine practiced and believed in the same way by all believers. His point is to say that to one degree or another these 10 interrelated assumptions and beliefs are behind and give life to the viewpoints and practices of major parts of institutional and popular conservative American Protestantism, particularly evangelicalism.

Smith gives examples of biblicism as found in evangelical popular (folk) culture, in Christian institutions, and in Christian scholarly declarations. These examples range from the cruder folk sayings to the more sophisticated expressions of belief by scholars and church leaders. Some examples are the following:

• Sayings such as: "God said it, I believe it, that settles it!"; "BIBLE - Basic Instruction Before Leaving Earth"; "Confused? Read the Directions!"(picture of the Bible)...etc.
• Book titles: 
• Bible Answers for Almost All Your Questions
• 100 Biblical Tips to Help You Live a More Peaceful and Prosperous Life
• Cooking with the Bible
• Business by the Book
• God's Blueprint for Building Marital Intimacy
• God Honoring Finances
• Politics and the Christian
• etc., etc.
•  Doctrinal statements of Christian institutions, such as divinity school which includes this: "We believe the Scriptures, both Old and New Testaments, to be the inspired Word of God, without error in the original writings, the complete revelation of His will for the salvation of me and the Divine and final authority for all Christian faith and life."
• A well-known Bible institute states a commonly held view: "...the authority of the Bible, which declares timeless truth that is relevant today."
• A theological seminary states in its beliefs: "...the Holy Scripture contains a system of doctrine. We deny that the Holy Scripture lacks doctrinal unity on any point of doctrine, or that it does not always agree with itself. We affirm that the Holy Scripture is harmonious in all its teachings..."
• Evangelical parachurch organizations typically have doctrinal statements that include declarations such as: "We believe that the Bible...is the revelation of God to mankind, is verbally and fully inspired by Him, is sufficient for the knowledge of God and His will that is necessary for the eternal welfare of mankind, and is infallible and inerrant in its original manuscripts, and is the supreme and final authority for all Christian faith and conduct."

Smith is not saying that none of these statements are true but that there are assumptions and mistaken conclusions that we make about the Bible because of a mindset that has developed within Christianity (particularly evangelicalism) which expects the Bible to be and do what he contends God never intended for it to be and do. He deals with this in the second half of chapter one when talking about "pervasive interpretive pluralism." More on that in a couple of days!

The Bible Made Impossible - Author's Introduction

If you have followed some of my posts recently, you know that the topic of the tree of life and the tree of the knowledge of good and evil is one that I have written about. As I was reading "The Bible Made Impossible", it occurred to me that, without necessarily using this language, the author is essentially proposing that we can either use the Scriptures primarily as a source of knowledge (a manual) or as a source of discovering the tree of life (Jesus). He contends that we western evangelicals have turned it into a manual rather than seeing it primarily as God's revelation of His Son Jesus.

This week I'll go through his introduction and give a general overview of the content of the book. He begins by saying, "The goal of this book is not to detract from the plausibility, reliability, or authority of the Christian faith or from scripture. The goal is to persuade readers that one particular theory of Christian plausibility, reliability, and authority - what I call biblicism - is inadequate to the task...
By 'biblicism' I mean a theory about the Bible that emphasizes together its exclusive authority, infallibility, perspicuity (clarity), self-sufficiency, internal consistency, self-evident meaning, and universal applicability...all together (these points) form a constellation of assumptions and beliefs that define a particular theory and practice..."

Christian Smith goes on to defend himself from any idea that he is promoting theological liberalism, going so far as to state that he believes that such liberalism is not part of true Christianity. Having said that, Smith contends that "biblicism" is not the way to handle such liberalism, as most evangelicals believe.

The book is divided into 2 major sections: 
1) "The Impossibility of Biblicism"
In the first section Smith deals with what he calls the problem of "pervasive interpretive pluralism"; in other words, the reality that "even among presumably well-intentioned readers - including many evangelical biblicists - the Bible, after their very best efforts to understand it, says and teaches very different things about most significant topics..." So he deals with the relevance of biblicist theory as it relates to claims of scriptural authority and infallibility.

He then deals with the defensibility of biblicism in general, focusing on "the fact that the Bible contains a variety of texts that are problematic in different ways and that biblicist (among other) readers rarely know how to handle." But in order to defend their theory, biblicists respond in 3 ways: a) ignore the problematic texts; b) "interpret" the problematic texts as if they say things that they don't say; c) develop elaborate contortions of scenarios and explanations in an attempt to make it all fit the biblicist's theory.

2) "Toward a Truly Evangelical Reading of Scripture"
The final 3 chapters of the book are the author's proposals for overcoming American evangelical biblicism. "Contrary to the fears of some biblicists, leaving biblicism behind need not mean losing the best of evangelicalism but, instead, can mean strengthening an evangelical hermeneutic of Scripture." In this section he turns towards Jesus as the primary interpretive key to understanding Scripture (http://nitasbookclub.blogspot.com/2011/11/jesus-purpose-center-and-interpretive.html) and helps the reader toward the acceptance of ambiguity and towards rethinking how we humans know and understand.

Christian Smith is a sociologist and brings this perspective into his study. I find this valuable because he deals with the reality of how our thinking has been and is shaped by history, sociology and psychology.

God bless you this week and may the Word of God lead us to Jesus, the Source of all life!