Bacote Evangelicals & Scripture

1. Auflage 2009
ISBN: 978-0-8308-7511-5
Verlag: InterVarsity Press
Format: EPUB
Kopierschutz: Adobe DRM (»Systemvoraussetzungen)

E-Book, Englisch, 245 Seiten

Reihe: Wheaton Theology Conference Series

By definition, a high view of Scripture inheres in evangelicalism. However, there does not seem to be a uniform way to articulate an evangelical doctrine of Scripture. Taking up the challenge, Vincent Bacote, Laura Miguélez and Dennis Okholm present twelve essays that explore in depth the meaning of an evangelical doctrine of Scripture that takes seriously both the human and divine dimensions of the Bible. Selected from the presentations made at the 2001 Wheaton Theology Conference, the essays approach this vital subject from three directions. Stanley J. Grenz, Thomas Buchan, Bruce L. McCormack and Donald W. Dayton consider the history of evangelical thinking on the nature of Scripture.John J. Brogan, Kent Sparks, J. Daniel Hays and Richard L. Schultz address the nature of biblical authority. Bruce Ellis Benson, John R. Franke, Daniel J. Treier and David Alan Williams explore the challenge of hermeneutics, especially as it relates to interpreting Scripture in a postmodern context.Together these essays provide a window into current evangelical scholarship on the doctrine of Scripture and also advance the dialogue about how best to construe our faith in the Word of God, living and written, that informs not only the belief but also the practice of the church.

Vincent E. Bacote (Ph.D., Drew University) is assistant professor of theology at Wheaton College in Wheaton, Illinois. He is the author of The Spirit in Public Theology: Appropriating the Legacy of Abraham Kuyper (Baker) and a contributor to The Gospel in Black and White (IVP), The Dictionary for the Theological Interpretation of the Bible (Baker) and Best Christian Writing 2000 (HarperCollins). His work has also appeared in such publications as Re:generation Quarterly, Urban Mission, Christianity Today and Journal for Christian Theological Research. Okholm (Ph.D., Princeton Theological Seminary) teaches in the department of theology and philosophy at Haggard School of Theology, Azusa Pacific University. Previously he was associate professor of theology at Wheaton College in Wheaton, Illinois. He is also an ordained minister in the Presbyterian Church (USA), and an oblate of a Benedictine monastery (Blue Cloud Abbey, SD). He has coauthored and coedited several books, including two collections of papers presented at the annual Wheaton Theology Conference and Welcome to the Family: An Introduction to Evangelical Christianity (all in partnership with Timothy R. Phillips). Laura Miguelez Quay is assistant professor of theology at Wheaton College in Wheaton, Illinois.

Autoren/Hrsg.

Bacote, Vincent E.

Leseproben

1

Nurturing the Soul, Informing the Mind

The Genesis of the Evangelical Scripture Principle

Stanley J. Grenz

From infancy you have known the holy Scriptures, which are able to make you wise for salvation through faith in Christ Jesus.

2 Timothy 3:15 NIV

In 1977, at the height of the "battle for the Bible" that was threatening to polarize American evangelicalism, Kenneth Kantzer described the movement (of which he was an important leader) as concerned above all with "addressing the lost, confused, and desperately needy world . . . with the gospel of God's redeeming love and the sure biblical chart for sailing on life's uncharted seas."[1] This illuminating description of the evangelical self-consciousness embodies two central principles that have marked the movement throughout its three-century trajectory: the concern to be a "gospel people" and the concern to be a "Scripture people."[2] In keeping with this sentiment, many contemporary evangelical leaders speak about evangelicalism as being characterized by commitment to a formal and a material principle.[3] Although difference of opinion remains regarding the latter, American evangelicals since the mid-twentieth century have come to a near consensus that the formal principle of the movement entails loyalty to the Bible as the completely true and trustworthy, final and authoritative source for theology.[4] Kantzer, in fact, went so far as to assert that this principle "represents a basic unifying factor throughout the whole of contemporary evangelicalism" and that as a result "the evangelical . . . seeks to construct his theology on the teaching of the Bible, the whole Bible, and nothing but the Bible."[5]

Kantzer's conclusion may well be a bit overstated, especially as a characterization of evangelicalism as both a historical and a global phenomenon. Moreover, allegiance to Scripture is not a distinctively evangelical commitment, for all ecclesiastical traditions view the Bible as in some sense normative for community life and teaching. Yet evangelicals tend to see themselves as the true guardians of this common Christian heritage. They claim that the church is by its very nature a community that gathers around the Bible and for which the Bible is not merely a norm but the norming norm. Taking their cue from John Wesley—who in the preface to a collection of his sermons declared tersely, "Let me be homo unius libri"—evangelicals understand themselves not only as a people of the book, but as a people of one book.[6]

But what does it mean to be a people of one book? My goal in this essay is to offer a description of what loyalty to the Scripture principle has entailed when viewed from an evangelical perspective. More specifically, I am posing the historical-theological query, what concerns led to the centrality of Scripture in evangelical theology? And I will respond by retelling the theological history of the evangelical trajectory.

The Formation of the Evangelical Scripture Principle

Although evangelicals have always elevated the Bible, they have not agreed—and do not yet agree—among themselves as to how the Bible functions within the believing community. In fact, we could pinpoint at least two quite different, yet mutually informing, approaches to the role of Scripture prevalent among evangelical thinkers.

Some view the Bible primarily, if perhaps not exclusively, as the source of correct doctrine. This is especially evident, for example, in Wayne Grudem, who subtitled his mammoth text in systematic theology "an introduction to biblical doctrine" and, in the preface, stated that the book is "for every Christian who has a hunger to know the central doctrines of the Bible in greater depth."[7] Millard Erickson offers a bit more nuanced understanding. He views the Bible as the means through which we gain access to Jesus' teaching regarding, to cite his words, "what is to be believed and what is to be done."[8] Yet in what follows in his three-volume Christian Theology, Erickson's keen commitment to the task of gaining sound doctrine from Scripture is overwhelmingly evident. In short, these theologians look to the Bible above all as the means for informing the Christian mind.

Others, in contrast, see Scripture first and foremost as the source of spiritual sustenance. They speak of the Bible as the place—ultimately the only place—where the words of everlasting life may be found. Indicative of this viewpoint, Clark Pinnock observes that because they understand the Bible to be "the God-given documentation which preserves for all time the gospel of our salvation . . . ordinary believers know instinctively from the Spirit their teacher to go there to be nourished in their faith."[9] We might say that these evangelicals view the Bible primarily as the means for nurturing the soul.

In what follows I intend to trace the theological lineage of these two quite distinct yet interrelated understandings of the character of the evangelical Scripture principle and then draw a few conclusions from my historical survey. The obvious place to begin the story is with the turning point in theological history from which nearly all evangelicals everywhere track their lineage, the Reformation.

From Sola Scriptura to the Reverence for the Bible

In taking their stand on the Bible as the norming norm, evangelicals claim the legacy of the Reformation and especially of Martin Luther's great dictum, sola scriptura. This is surely correct both historically and theologically, insofar as the starting point for the evangelical Scripture principle lies with the concerns of the sixteenth century. Although the trajectory from Luther forward eventually launches both aspects of the evangelical view of Scripture, it leads most directly to a reverence for the Bible as Scripture because Scripture is seen primarily as a source of sustenance.

The return of biblical authority. The Protestant commitment to the "Bible alone" arose in the midst of a wider theological conflict with the Roman Catholic Church over the question of the final authority in the church, a dispute that had already charted a two-hundred-year history by the sixteenth century. What brought Luther to enter this fray was his search for a gracious God, a quest that led him to the Bible. In his subsequent conflict with Rome, Luther sought to undercut the Catholic position, which endowed the pope and church councils with ultimate authority and thereby effectively set the church above the Bible.

Luther's position was closely connected to, and found its theological basis in, his understanding of the gospel. In his estimation, justification by faith meant that humans are completely dependent on God's mercy, which we cannot earn and for which we can do nothing. For Luther, this dependency is not only operative in salvation; but because it is soteriologically centered, it affects the realm of knowing God as well. He was convinced that true knowledge of God arises only out of God's self-disclosure in the Word and through the Spirit. Luther likewise attacked the Roman Catholic claims that tradition ought to be placed alongside of Scripture and that only the Roman Catholic Church's teaching office can interpret the Bible properly. In response to what he saw as the erroneous foundation on which Roman Catholic theology was constructed, Luther introduced the principle of sola scriptura, the claim that Scripture alone is the ultimate authority for Christian faith and practice.

Like Luther, John Calvin viewed Christ as the Word of God in the ultimate sense.[10] Yet Calvin also spoke of the Bible as the Word,[11] in that it is God's testament or witness to us[12] and the content of divine revelation is Christ himself.[13] As the Word of God, Calvin declared, Scripture does not derive its authority from the church.[14] Rather, the church is built on the foundation of the prophets and apostles, and this foundation is now found in Scripture.[15] In Calvin's estimation, the authority of the Bible does not emerge sui generis, but arises from the fact that God speaks in it. Hence, rather than depending on philosophical argumentation to support this claim, Calvin viewed the authority of the Bible as in a certain sense self-authenticating.[16] For Calvin, then, the recognition of the Bible as our authority is closely connected with God's gracious salvific work. As Justo González succinctly declares regarding the Geneva Reformer, "the reason that Scripture is authoritative for him is the experience of grace."[17]

The regenerate reader. Calvin's approach, including his emphasis on the self-authenticating nature of Scripture through the internal testimony of the Spirit, lived on in the English Puritans, who were concerned as to how the insights of the Bible might be applied to church order and to the daily life of the saints.[18] The Puritan understanding of biblical authority, which undergirded their program of church and personal reform, came to expression in the Westminster Confession of Faith.[19] Like the Reformers, the Westminster divines called for a link between Word and Spirit. They appealed to the Spirit as the one who not only guides the reader in understanding Scripture, but also...