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In Chapter One of A Clear and Present Word, Mark Thompson lays out several objections to the doctrine of the perspicuity of Scripture. In Chapter Two, entitled “The effective communicator: God as the guarantor of scriptural clarity”, Thompson begins his defense of Scripture’s perspicuity.
The defense begins with five observations. 1) Christian theology, at its most basic, is talk about God. 2) Christian theology is essentially and unavoidably trinitarian. 3) Christian theology is talk about God made possible by God’s prior decision to be known. 4) Christian theology can only claim truth and authority in so far as it conforms to God’s self-revelation. 5) Christian theology is talk about God that takes place in the presence of God and in the eyes of the world.
The key point running through these five observations is just this: God can be known because he wants to be known. God shows his sovereign power and love in the gospel. He provides his own exegesis in the person and work of Christ. And God also reveals himself through speech.
That God is a speaking God is so obvious from Scripture that we sometimes overlook it. “God’s capacity for speech is treated as self-evident and operates as one of the most basic and influential assumptions in Scripture.” We may wonder how did God speak? What language did he use? How did they know they were hearing from God? These are interesting questions, but the Bible doesn’t deal with these questions as much as it simply assumes on almost every page of both testaments that our God speaks.
And he speaks that we might understand. “As far as the Bible is concerned, God confronts his people, not with an inarticulate presence nor simply with actions that are somehow self-evidently significant, but with activity surrounded, as it were, by words.” Moreover, the words of God are not meant to satisfy our idle curiosity about the divine. God speaks so that we can know him and be saved. “In other words, the knowledge of God that is the goal of God’s speaking ought never to be separated from the centerpiece of Christian theology; namely, the salvation of sinners.”
*****
A main argument against the perspicuity of Scripture is the insistence that human language is too feeble to be an instrument of the divine. Last year I got to know an anthropology professor at MSU whose ongoing research was about the emergent church and its view of language. The professor (a young man about my age, so not a full professor) invited me to a lecture he gave comparing the different views of language coming out of the emergent church and from people like John Piper and John MacArthur. It was fascinating to be a fly on the wall at that lecture as most people in attendance thought the Pipers and MacArthurs of the world were full of modern who-hash. My friend gave a fair presentation, so much so that I never quite new which side he favored. But I think he was right in arguing that our view of language is a major fault line in contemporary Christianity.
Thompson makes the compelling case that we should view human language as a gift from God. After all, God is the first one to speak in the Bible (and in the universe for that matter). He comes to Adam and Eve with words and expects them to understand and obey. God is the speaker antecedent to all human speaking. It stands to reason, then, that language is part of the gift God gives to us of himself. Thus: "To suggest that God cannot be exhaustively known or contained withing any conceptual or verbal system is one thing. To expose our general propensity for inept or deceitful use of language on this side of the fall is also entirely appropriate. However, if words are indeed the gift of God and if by creating men and women in his image he has made us fit speech partners for himself, then we must overextending Luther’s insight [about God’s otherness]."
God’s gift of language extends to the words of Scripture, which, as almost all Christians have believed throughout the centuries, is the word of God. Jesus used the word of God to unmask the lies of the devil (Matt. 4:1-11). He equated the Law and Scripture with the word of God (Matt. 15:6; John 10:34-36). Jesus regularly appealed to the Scriptures as the final arbiter in his debates with religious leaders (Matt 12:3, 5; 19:4; 22:31; Mark 12:10, 26). This same attitude toward the Jewish Scriptures can be found in the writings of the Apostles (Acts 2:14-41; 4:24-25; 2 Tim. 3:16-17; Rom. 1:2). And then Peter does not hesitate to expand the cannon of Scripture to include some of these same Apostolic writings (2 Peter 3:16). The point is that the Bible is equated with the word of God in the Bible. And with good reason. It’s how Jesus and the Apostles looked at the Scriptures.
All of this means that God, the great self-revelator, has given us a book so that we might know him. His word is not beyond us for one simple reason: God gave us his word and God wants to be known. He wants to be known by the great and the small, the brilliant and the common. “What kind of God,” asks Sproul, “would reveal his love and redemption in terms so technical and concepts so profound that only an elite corps of professional scholars could understand them?” We must always remember that when we talk about epistemology we are talking about the character of God. Is God wise enough to make himself known? Is he good enough to make himself accessible? Is he gracious enough to communicate in ways the simple ploughboy can understand? Or does God give us commands we can’t understand and a self-revelation that reveals as many questions as answers?
The Holy Spirit inspired the Bible and the Holy Spirit can make it plain to us (cf. 1 Cor. 2). For, as Luther reminded Erasmus in his day, “The Holy Spirit is no skeptic.”
Wednesday, April 1, 2009
A Clear and Present Word (2)
In Chapter One of A Clear and Present Word, Mark Thompson lays out several objections to the doctrine of the perspicuity of Scripture. In Chapter Two, entitled “The effective communicator: God as the guarantor of scriptural clarity”, Thompson begins his defense of Scripture’s perspicuity.
The defense begins with five observations. 1) Christian theology, at its most basic, is talk about God. 2) Christian theology is essentially and unavoidably trinitarian. 3) Christian theology is talk about God made possible by God’s prior decision to be known. 4) Christian theology can only claim truth and authority in so far as it conforms to God’s self-revelation. 5) Christian theology is talk about God that takes place in the presence of God and in the eyes of the world.
The key point running through these five observations is just this: God can be known because he wants to be known. God shows his sovereign power and love in the gospel. He provides his own exegesis in the person and work of Christ. And God also reveals himself through speech.
That God is a speaking God is so obvious from Scripture that we sometimes overlook it. “God’s capacity for speech is treated as self-evident and operates as one of the most basic and influential assumptions in Scripture.” We may wonder how did God speak? What language did he use? How did they know they were hearing from God? These are interesting questions, but the Bible doesn’t deal with these questions as much as it simply assumes on almost every page of both testaments that our God speaks.
And he speaks that we might understand. “As far as the Bible is concerned, God confronts his people, not with an inarticulate presence nor simply with actions that are somehow self-evidently significant, but with activity surrounded, as it were, by words.” Moreover, the words of God are not meant to satisfy our idle curiosity about the divine. God speaks so that we can know him and be saved. “In other words, the knowledge of God that is the goal of God’s speaking ought never to be separated from the centerpiece of Christian theology; namely, the salvation of sinners.”
*****
A main argument against the perspicuity of Scripture is the insistence that human language is too feeble to be an instrument of the divine. Last year I got to know an anthropology professor at MSU whose ongoing research was about the emergent church and its view of language. The professor (a young man about my age, so not a full professor) invited me to a lecture he gave comparing the different views of language coming out of the emergent church and from people like John Piper and John MacArthur. It was fascinating to be a fly on the wall at that lecture as most people in attendance thought the Pipers and MacArthurs of the world were full of modern who-hash. My friend gave a fair presentation, so much so that I never quite new which side he favored. But I think he was right in arguing that our view of language is a major fault line in contemporary Christianity.
Thompson makes the compelling case that we should view human language as a gift from God. After all, God is the first one to speak in the Bible (and in the universe for that matter). He comes to Adam and Eve with words and expects them to understand and obey. God is the speaker antecedent to all human speaking. It stands to reason, then, that language is part of the gift God gives to us of himself. Thus: "To suggest that God cannot be exhaustively known or contained withing any conceptual or verbal system is one thing. To expose our general propensity for inept or deceitful use of language on this side of the fall is also entirely appropriate. However, if words are indeed the gift of God and if by creating men and women in his image he has made us fit speech partners for himself, then we must overextending Luther’s insight [about God’s otherness]."
God’s gift of language extends to the words of Scripture, which, as almost all Christians have believed throughout the centuries, is the word of God. Jesus used the word of God to unmask the lies of the devil (Matt. 4:1-11). He equated the Law and Scripture with the word of God (Matt. 15:6; John 10:34-36). Jesus regularly appealed to the Scriptures as the final arbiter in his debates with religious leaders (Matt 12:3, 5; 19:4; 22:31; Mark 12:10, 26). This same attitude toward the Jewish Scriptures can be found in the writings of the Apostles (Acts 2:14-41; 4:24-25; 2 Tim. 3:16-17; Rom. 1:2). And then Peter does not hesitate to expand the cannon of Scripture to include some of these same Apostolic writings (2 Peter 3:16). The point is that the Bible is equated with the word of God in the Bible. And with good reason. It’s how Jesus and the Apostles looked at the Scriptures.
All of this means that God, the great self-revelator, has given us a book so that we might know him. His word is not beyond us for one simple reason: God gave us his word and God wants to be known. He wants to be known by the great and the small, the brilliant and the common. “What kind of God,” asks Sproul, “would reveal his love and redemption in terms so technical and concepts so profound that only an elite corps of professional scholars could understand them?” We must always remember that when we talk about epistemology we are talking about the character of God. Is God wise enough to make himself known? Is he good enough to make himself accessible? Is he gracious enough to communicate in ways the simple ploughboy can understand? Or does God give us commands we can’t understand and a self-revelation that reveals as many questions as answers?
The Holy Spirit inspired the Bible and the Holy Spirit can make it plain to us (cf. 1 Cor. 2). For, as Luther reminded Erasmus in his day, “The Holy Spirit is no skeptic.”
The defense begins with five observations. 1) Christian theology, at its most basic, is talk about God. 2) Christian theology is essentially and unavoidably trinitarian. 3) Christian theology is talk about God made possible by God’s prior decision to be known. 4) Christian theology can only claim truth and authority in so far as it conforms to God’s self-revelation. 5) Christian theology is talk about God that takes place in the presence of God and in the eyes of the world.
The key point running through these five observations is just this: God can be known because he wants to be known. God shows his sovereign power and love in the gospel. He provides his own exegesis in the person and work of Christ. And God also reveals himself through speech.
That God is a speaking God is so obvious from Scripture that we sometimes overlook it. “God’s capacity for speech is treated as self-evident and operates as one of the most basic and influential assumptions in Scripture.” We may wonder how did God speak? What language did he use? How did they know they were hearing from God? These are interesting questions, but the Bible doesn’t deal with these questions as much as it simply assumes on almost every page of both testaments that our God speaks.
And he speaks that we might understand. “As far as the Bible is concerned, God confronts his people, not with an inarticulate presence nor simply with actions that are somehow self-evidently significant, but with activity surrounded, as it were, by words.” Moreover, the words of God are not meant to satisfy our idle curiosity about the divine. God speaks so that we can know him and be saved. “In other words, the knowledge of God that is the goal of God’s speaking ought never to be separated from the centerpiece of Christian theology; namely, the salvation of sinners.”
*****
A main argument against the perspicuity of Scripture is the insistence that human language is too feeble to be an instrument of the divine. Last year I got to know an anthropology professor at MSU whose ongoing research was about the emergent church and its view of language. The professor (a young man about my age, so not a full professor) invited me to a lecture he gave comparing the different views of language coming out of the emergent church and from people like John Piper and John MacArthur. It was fascinating to be a fly on the wall at that lecture as most people in attendance thought the Pipers and MacArthurs of the world were full of modern who-hash. My friend gave a fair presentation, so much so that I never quite new which side he favored. But I think he was right in arguing that our view of language is a major fault line in contemporary Christianity.
Thompson makes the compelling case that we should view human language as a gift from God. After all, God is the first one to speak in the Bible (and in the universe for that matter). He comes to Adam and Eve with words and expects them to understand and obey. God is the speaker antecedent to all human speaking. It stands to reason, then, that language is part of the gift God gives to us of himself. Thus: "To suggest that God cannot be exhaustively known or contained withing any conceptual or verbal system is one thing. To expose our general propensity for inept or deceitful use of language on this side of the fall is also entirely appropriate. However, if words are indeed the gift of God and if by creating men and women in his image he has made us fit speech partners for himself, then we must overextending Luther’s insight [about God’s otherness]."
God’s gift of language extends to the words of Scripture, which, as almost all Christians have believed throughout the centuries, is the word of God. Jesus used the word of God to unmask the lies of the devil (Matt. 4:1-11). He equated the Law and Scripture with the word of God (Matt. 15:6; John 10:34-36). Jesus regularly appealed to the Scriptures as the final arbiter in his debates with religious leaders (Matt 12:3, 5; 19:4; 22:31; Mark 12:10, 26). This same attitude toward the Jewish Scriptures can be found in the writings of the Apostles (Acts 2:14-41; 4:24-25; 2 Tim. 3:16-17; Rom. 1:2). And then Peter does not hesitate to expand the cannon of Scripture to include some of these same Apostolic writings (2 Peter 3:16). The point is that the Bible is equated with the word of God in the Bible. And with good reason. It’s how Jesus and the Apostles looked at the Scriptures.
All of this means that God, the great self-revelator, has given us a book so that we might know him. His word is not beyond us for one simple reason: God gave us his word and God wants to be known. He wants to be known by the great and the small, the brilliant and the common. “What kind of God,” asks Sproul, “would reveal his love and redemption in terms so technical and concepts so profound that only an elite corps of professional scholars could understand them?” We must always remember that when we talk about epistemology we are talking about the character of God. Is God wise enough to make himself known? Is he good enough to make himself accessible? Is he gracious enough to communicate in ways the simple ploughboy can understand? Or does God give us commands we can’t understand and a self-revelation that reveals as many questions as answers?
The Holy Spirit inspired the Bible and the Holy Spirit can make it plain to us (cf. 1 Cor. 2). For, as Luther reminded Erasmus in his day, “The Holy Spirit is no skeptic.”
