Chances are, if you have cable you’ve probably happened upon an eyebrow-raising sermon on Christian T.V. A charismatic speaker was pulling particularly creative meanings out of a biblical text—meanings that you were pretty sure contradicted the contextual import of the passage, contradicted sound theology, or otherwise sounded too baseless and “out there.”
Now let’s say you’re a preacher or a writer or simply a devotee of scripture enjoying the Word at home, and God has been leading you to apparent “buried truths” in some of the stories of the Bible narrative. You’ve seen the T.V. though. You shudder thinking what a minefield it must be to try to steward what I will call “secondary illuminations” of scripture rightly.
You’re not sure if it can or should be done. Forget looking up the meaning of the name of a battle location when it jumps out at you; forget connections you see weaving between disparate parts of the biblical narrative, and forget apparent symbolism when it is not central to the simplest interpretation of a passage as it would have been heard by the original audience. This simplest interpretation is what I will call the “primary illumination” of the passage. Insofar as you can figure it out, it’s the most important and safest interpretation.
But let’s say God is a bit persistent about speaking creatively. Maybe to give you courage He even puts a preacher in your path who uses secondary illuminations of scripture responsibly—with attention to the plainer historical-grammatical meaning and to theology. Maybe this preacher even translated the New Testament for an unreached jungle tribe. You have to give him props for that. Apparently he knows his Word, and he thinks it speaks in stereo. And so do you.
So you pull out your laptop and start expressing the illuminations of scripture that you have found. All the while God confirms these whether with an intercessor unwittingly prophesying that you are called to delve into the very scripture passage you’ve been working on, a chance meeting with a rabbi who happened to be discussing that he felt there was some mystery hidden behind a passage that tied it to a certain theme, a mystery that it turned out you could explain, or simply with the further unfolding of the weave of Scripture.
On the other hand, you keep running across folks like Gordon D. Fee and Douglas Stuart who, in their justly acclaimed book, How to Read the Bible for All its Worth, don’t take too kindly to novel interpretations of scripture passages:
“Interpretation that aims at, or thrives on, uniqueness can usually be attributed to pride (an attempt to “outclever” the rest of the world), a false understanding of spirituality (wherein the Bible is full of deeply buried truths waiting to be mined by the spiritually sensitive person with special insight), or vested interests (the need to support a theological bias, especially in dealing with texts that seem to go against that bias). …The aim of good interpretation is simple: to get at the “plain meaning of the text.” (p. 18)
Ok, you have the fear of God in you now; you don’t want to start a cult, and you don’t want people to think that you think you know more than they do. Oh, wait, perhaps that is the fear of man. What do you do?
Apparently you start a weekly column on a pastor’s blog in which you explore the viability and benefit (or danger) of secondary illuminations of scripture :).
My name is Deborah. I hope to see you for the next twelve Saturdays so that we can discuss how our predecessors in the Church approached scripture, where today’s conservative evangelical rules for hermeneutics (the interpretation of scripture) arose, and what some helpful guidelines might be if we were to consider welcoming secondary illuminations.
Debz let me say this is an excellent article. But let me ask is there any benefit to “secondary illumination” and if so in what context, private study or public proclamation?
Hey, Sean! Thanks. Well, my argument, as I alluded to, is that there is benefit both for private and public proclamation. The pastor/Bible translator whom I mentioned above was one of the first people to convince me that public proclamation of the same could actually do more good than harm and be more or less responsibly managed. I may not always agree w/ his hermeneutics or conclusions, but his secondary illuminations both ministered deeply to me on multiple occasions and confirmed my own (b/c not a few times I sat through a sermon where God had given me the exact same secondary insight and sometimes more details besides; some of these I’d even written out before he preached them… had me shaking in my boots, lol!).
By positing it as an “if,” I’m just giving room for peops to disagree or to be noncommittal as they consider my research and reasoning over the next 12 weeks. I also think there are dangers and risks along with the benefits (and sometimes far outweighing them) which is why I’m going to take so many weeks with the topic, both trying to encourage the possibility that secondary illumination is a valid way to approach scripture and trying to start a discussion about guardrails to reduce the inherent risk.
Truth be told, I have two rough book manuscripts lying around that owe a *tremendous* deal to secondary illumination while trying to keep first things first. I fought against this type of illumination for a long while, but Scripture is a tapestry to me with intricate symbols and themes woven through from start to finish. Whenever I’ve been most in love with the Word, these have just popped out all the more w/ many confirmations. I resisted God “talking” to me this way–and certainly to sharing it w/ others–for awhile, but imo, God had my number and a finger in my back ;). It’s so essential to have a basic hermeneutical grid for primary illuminations undergirding everything though… as well as other cautions that we could discuss.
My two. Do you have an opinion?
I’m interested in finding out if you will maintain the primacy of an “authorial intent” hermeneutic, and if so, how “secondary illuminations” fits into that.
It might be helpful to define what is meant by “secondary illumination” too. Does that mean “prophetic insight” or is “seeing in the Spirit” or something like that?
Fun reading ahead!
Hi Luke,
Well, whether or not you will think I’ve held onto the authorial intent hermeneutic well enough in the end is another matter, but it is very important to my mind :).
Thanks for the nudge regarding definitions. In order to save space I was trying to sort of define “secondary illuminations” in passing via examples w/ this portion, ” …Looking up the meaning of the name of a battle location when it jumps out at you… connections you see weaving between disparate parts of the biblical narrative… apparent symbolism when it is not central to the simplest interpretation of a passage…” Perhaps I should have taken more time with it, particularly since the examples of what not to do which I will later give don’t even fall into any of these three categories but, rather, into categories such as personal prophetic illumination.
I was concerned, however, about inevitably going down too many bunny trails. For instance, I do include prophetic insights in secondary illuminations, but for some cessationist peops who might feasibly be reading this, it might be helpful to focus upon the [in?]validity of something like Spurgeon’s intermittent interest in encouragements found in the definitions of proper names or symbolism not central to the simplest authorial intent interpretation of a passage. Or attention to Hebrew gematria (numeric meanings) might occasionally be of interest to non-charismatics. Charismatics might include these under a broad category of “prophetic insights,” but non-charismatics might be encouraged by the same while shying away from the charismatic identity.
So I guess for now I’m just trying to vaguely include the possibility of validity for any given secondary insight that is not foundational to the authorial intent of a passage. I will sift some of those out as invalid in coming weeks w/o specifically determining everything that is valid (at least such is the plan now). I guess my hope was more to give information and pointers via which people might begin to relegating insights in their own particular contexts into “valid,” “invalid,” and “shelving” categories. For some of my friends, it might be rather radical to start to shelve ANY of the charismatic engagements with scripture that some of the “prophets” offer, while others might choose to move cautiously forward out of a historical-grammatical-only hermeneutic.
I guess you’ll let me know in coming weeks if more definition still seems necessary? Portions of this material were from an appendix to a book I was working on which gave plenty of examples of secondary illumination in action, so I can understand that clarity might end up lacking in this different context.
Thanks,
D
I might also need to provide more examples which engage the sample categories given here?
I’m thinking that some of these term definitions are extremely important for a number of reasons:
(1) A topic such as this could be directed towards the contextualization aspect of the “hermeneutical spiral” (i.e., application). An ancient text written in the 1st century has it’s primary situation/context in which it was written and yet is applicable for today through how we contextualize it.
(2) Another issue related to hermeneutics is that of typology, or how there are “multiple layers,” as opposed to “multiple meanings.”
(3) Redemptive-Historical or Christological hermeneutics that control the movement that takes place from ancient text to current context through Spirit inspired preacher.
(4) Prophecy, of the spiritual gift variety, where people are given (or give) a Scripture to someone else that is to be applied and understood in a way that is different than the original author’s intention (this is different than sensus plenior).
Lots of different things to think through here….
Looking forward to reading more!
Luke, that’s an excellent breakdown. I’m mostly not talking about #1, as that seems to me a discussion that should mostly take place as an appendix to historical-grammatical primary interpretation. However, I recognize that application and secondary illumination rub one another, just not in a way that I’ve seen to address in the scope of this blog.
I am conflating 2-4, honestly, and am not fully sure if some elements of what I have in mind would properly fall under 2 and 3 in your opinion or in a 5th category.
I do agree that “multiple layers” is probably a more helpful phrase to use when describing some of these than “multiple meanings” even though Aquinas has chosen the later in the passages in which I will quote him. Layers suggest more of a continuum than do scattershot “meanings.”
Your separation of prophecy from sensus plenior is important and something that I have not directly addressed in what I have written. What I have done is postulated that secondary illuminations (including prophetic uses) cannot be in outright contradiction of the primary meaning of scripture (and by derivation the *possible* scope of its rightful sensus plenoir). No doubt many charismatics would think I am being too strict in this regards, while others would feel I am not strict enough. Notice that when I say the secondary illumination cannot be an outright contradiction, I’m not even necessarily saying that the secondary illumination has to fit with the primary interpretation. I’m giving a looser boundary (as a starting point) of saying that the second cannot totally oppose the former. Prophecy into specific situations MIGHT be a place where “multiple meanings” (not just multiple layers) are allowed/possible when they do not make the primary interpretation impossible to sit side by side w/ them. I’m hesitant on this point, however, and these would still need to pass the test of being in conformity w/ the overarching gist of the scriptural message in relation to a given topic.
Am I being helpful here? Or is your systematic mind going bonkers w/ me, lol?
Interesting Luke, you just opened the issue up for a deeper look. For instance, Is.28:11 in context seem to have nothing to do with 1Cor. 14:21-22, but Paul used it as a proof text ( or so it seems ) to teach on spiritual gifts
I have used scriptures in ministering in prophecy, but not contextually.
Would really like to have a part 2 Debz
Ty, Sean. The plan is one a week, so it will take awhile. I, mean, I have them more or less written already, but they’re supposed to post every Saturday.
Thanks. That was some good further explanation. I just typed those categories quickly, so I think there may be more thoughts on that subject…
Looking forward to Saturday!
Sean, I don’t actually think Paul misuses Isaiah in 1 Cor., and by “misuse,” I mean that I think Paul actually does maintain the point of Isaiah in how he uses it.
I’ll actually blog on that hopefully in the next day or so (maybe even tonight?!). It’ll be more “exegetical” in nature, so you’ll probably have fun reading and interacting.
That being said… the NT use of the OT probably fits into this discussion too!
As Isaiah intended it? I’ll be interested to see your argument on that.
And, yes, NT use of the OT definitely fits in here. I’ll be mentioning it a couple of times in passing regarding how it fits into different arguments on developing a hermeneutic but not going deep in.
Ah! I dont think I implied misused as reinterpret to establish doctrine.
But I would really like to here you exegete Is.
Thanks Deborah… I will enjoy reading this conversation. I am currently reading Christian Smiths new book The Bible Made Impossible: Why Biblicisim is Not a truly Evangelical Reading of Scripture. Christians whole argument is centered around what he calls Evangelical “Pervasive Interpretive Pluralism”
Yeah, I’m sorry Sean. I didn’t mean to make it sound like you were saying that. I was more so responding to a typical argument that some make regarding the use of the OT in the NT.
I haven’t had a chance to talk about my view on Isaiah in 1 Corinthians 14 as I’m doing the family thing right now… but I will try and get that as a post soon. I need to post my Friday fallacy thing first… while it’s still Friday 🙂 I took two weeks off for the holidays!
My point about Paul’s use in chapter 14 is that I think he’s keeping with his point by using Isaiah in a way that does not neuter or ignore the original context… he’s using it as a case or example to show a principle. I’ll seriously try to post soon… which ought to be fun because I will have to go from my memory of previous studies I’ve done on it and with the Greek text only… not having my library here is… crazy. ha ha
Thanks, Disableme. That book has been in my Amazon “maybe” basket for awhile. Since you’re reading it, I’d be interested in future weeks to know how his thoughts might intersect with this topic if at all.
Hello, Deborah. The following
clips from your article were what made connections with me and Christian Smiths
book, The Bible Made Impossible.
“A charismatic speaker was pulling particularly creative meanings out of a
biblical text—meanings that you were pretty sure contradicted the contextual
import of the passage, contradicted sound theology, or otherwise sounded too
baseless and “out there.”
“This simplest
interpretation is what I will call the “primary illumination” of the
passage. Insofar as you can figure it out, it’s the most important and
safest interpretation.”
“My name is Deborah. I
hope to see you for the next twelve Saturdays so that we can discuss how our
predecessors in the Church approached scripture, where today’s conservative
evangelical rules for hermeneutics (the interpretation of scripture) arose, and
what some helpful guidelines might be if we were
to consider welcoming secondary illuminations.”
Christian Smith wants to tackle the problem that I have seen
and many others in evangelicalism called “pervasive interpretive pluralism”
This problem is really the fulcrum of this book. Of course this relates to illumination as
well. This is probably the most solidly researched
book I have ever come across on the subject of what I used to
simply indentify as SOLO scriptura. He is NOT against the doctrine of Sola
scriptura he just feels that it has grown into something else in the last 200
years that is a big problem. I think you would really enjoy this book. Maybe enjoy is not a good word. I have been deeply challenged by this book. After reading some of the reviews and follow up online discussion between Christian Smith and those who oppose it I have come to an even stronger understanding of the truth in what he is proclaiming about the problem of pervasive interpretive pluralism among evangelicals. (example review: The Gospel Coalition http://thegospelcoalition.org/blogs/kevindeyoung/2011/08/02/christian-smith-makes-the-bible-impossible/ )
Here are some thought provoking quotes from this book…
·
“First, I will argue that most biblicist
claims are rendered moot by a more fundamental problem (which few biblicists
ever acknowledge) that undermines all the supposed achievements of biblicism:
the problem of pervasive interpretive pluralism.”
·
“Those who fail to see this multivocality
and polysemy of scripture—who instead insist on the combination of perspicuity
and internal consistency—can do so only by forgetting that they interpret the
Bible from within a well-developed community of interpretation relying on
particular (though, to them, invisible) hermeneutical tools and paradigms that
many other biblicists do not share.”
·
Christian Smith defines “biblicism” as
the following…
“By
“biblicism” I mean a particular theory about and style of using the Bible that
is defined by a constellation of related
assumptions and beliefs about the Bible’s nature, purpose, and function. That constellation is represented by
ten assumptions or beliefs:
1.
Divine Writing: The Bible, down to the details
of its words, consists of and is identical with God’s very own words written
inerrantly in human language.
2.
Total
Representation: The Bible represents the totality of God’s communication to and
will for humanity, both in containing all that God has to say to humans and in
being the exclusive mode of God’s true communication.[11]
3.
Complete Coverage: The divine will about all of
the issues relevant to Christian belief and life are contained in the
Bible.[12]
4.
Democratic Perspicuity: Any reasonably
intelligent person can read the Bible in his or her own language and correctly
understand the plain meaning of the text.[13]
5.
Commonsense Hermeneutics: The best way to
understand biblical texts is by reading them in their explicit, plain, most
obvious, literal sense, as the author intended them at face value, which may or
may not involve taking into account their literary, cultural, and historical
contexts.
6.
Solo Scriptura:[14] The significance of any
given biblical text can be understood without reliance on creeds, confessions,
historical church traditions, or other forms of larger theological
hermeneutical frameworks, such that theological formulations can be built up
directly out of the Bible from scratch.
7.
Internal Harmony: All related passages of the
Bible on any given subject fit together almost like puzzle pieces into single,
unified, internally consistent bodies of instruction about right and wrong
beliefs and behaviors.
8.
Universal Applicability: What the biblical
authors taught God’s people at any point in history remains universally valid
for all Christians at every other time, unless explicitly revoked by subsequent
scriptural teaching.
9.
Inductive Method: All matters of Christian
belief and practice can be learned by sitting down with the Bible and piecing
together through careful study the clear “biblical” truths that it teaches.
10.
The prior nine assumptions and beliefs generate
a tenth viewpoint that—although often not stated in explications of biblicist
principles and beliefs by its advocates—also commonly characterizes the general
biblicist outlook, particularly as it is received and practiced in popular
circles: 10. Handbook Model: The Bible teaches doctrine and morals with every
affirmation that it makes, so that together those affirmations comprise
something like a handbook or textbook for Christian belief and living, a
compendium of divine and therefore inerrant teachings on a full array of
subjects—including science, economics, health, politics, and romance.[15]”
Smith,
Christian (2011-08-01). Bible Made Impossible,
Hello, Deborah. The following
clips from your article were what made connections with me and Christian Smiths
book, The Bible Made Impossible.
“A charismatic speaker was pulling particularly creative meanings out of a
biblical text—meanings that you were pretty sure contradicted the contextual
import of the passage, contradicted sound theology, or otherwise sounded too
baseless and “out there.”
“This simplest
interpretation is what I will call the “primary illumination” of the
passage. Insofar as you can figure it out, it’s the most important and
safest interpretation.”
“My name is Deborah. I
hope to see you for the next twelve Saturdays so that we can discuss how our
predecessors in the Church approached scripture, where today’s conservative
evangelical rules for hermeneutics (the interpretation of scripture) arose, and
what some helpful guidelines might be if we were
to consider welcoming secondary illuminations.”
Christian Smith wants to tackle the problem that I have seen
and many others in evangelicalism called “pervasive interpretive pluralism”
This problem is really the fulcrum of this book. Of course this relates to illumination as
well. This is probably the most solidly researched
book I have ever come across on the subject of what I used to
simply indentify as SOLO scriptura. He is NOT against the doctrine of Sola
scriptura he just feels that it has grown into something else in the last 200
years that is a big problem. I think you would really enjoy this book. Maybe enjoy is not a good word. I have been deeply challenged by this book. After reading some of the reviews and follow up online discussion between Christian Smith and those who oppose it I have come to an even stronger understanding of the truth in what he is proclaiming about the problem of pervasive interpretive pluralism among evangelicals. (example review: The Gospel Coalition http://thegospelcoalition.org/blogs/kevindeyoung/2011/08/02/christian-smith-makes-the-bible-impossible/ )
Here are some thought provoking quotes from this book…
·
“First, I will argue that most biblicist
claims are rendered moot by a more fundamental problem (which few biblicists
ever acknowledge) that undermines all the supposed achievements of biblicism:
the problem of pervasive interpretive pluralism.”
·
“Those who fail to see this multivocality
and polysemy of scripture—who instead insist on the combination of perspicuity
and internal consistency—can do so only by forgetting that they interpret the
Bible from within a well-developed community of interpretation relying on
particular (though, to them, invisible) hermeneutical tools and paradigms that
many other biblicists do not share.”
·
Christian Smith defines “biblicism” as
the following…
“By
“biblicism” I mean a particular theory about and style of using the Bible that
is defined by a constellation of related
assumptions and beliefs about the Bible’s nature, purpose, and function. That constellation is represented by
ten assumptions or beliefs:
1.
Divine Writing: The Bible, down to the details
of its words, consists of and is identical with God’s very own words written
inerrantly in human language.
2.
Total
Representation: The Bible represents the totality of God’s communication to and
will for humanity, both in containing all that God has to say to humans and in
being the exclusive mode of God’s true communication.[11]
3.
Complete Coverage: The divine will about all of
the issues relevant to Christian belief and life are contained in the
Bible.[12]
4.
Democratic Perspicuity: Any reasonably
intelligent person can read the Bible in his or her own language and correctly
understand the plain meaning of the text.[13]
5.
Commonsense Hermeneutics: The best way to
understand biblical texts is by reading them in their explicit, plain, most
obvious, literal sense, as the author intended them at face value, which may or
may not involve taking into account their literary, cultural, and historical
contexts.
6.
Solo Scriptura:[14] The significance of any
given biblical text can be understood without reliance on creeds, confessions,
historical church traditions, or other forms of larger theological
hermeneutical frameworks, such that theological formulations can be built up
directly out of the Bible from scratch.
7.
Internal Harmony: All related passages of the
Bible on any given subject fit together almost like puzzle pieces into single,
unified, internally consistent bodies of instruction about right and wrong
beliefs and behaviors.
8.
Universal Applicability: What the biblical
authors taught God’s people at any point in history remains universally valid
for all Christians at every other time, unless explicitly revoked by subsequent
scriptural teaching.
9.
Inductive Method: All matters of Christian
belief and practice can be learned by sitting down with the Bible and piecing
together through careful study the clear “biblical” truths that it teaches.
10.
The prior nine assumptions and beliefs generate
a tenth viewpoint that—although often not stated in explications of biblicist
principles and beliefs by its advocates—also commonly characterizes the general
biblicist outlook, particularly as it is received and practiced in popular
circles: 10. Handbook Model: The Bible teaches doctrine and morals with every
affirmation that it makes, so that together those affirmations comprise
something like a handbook or textbook for Christian belief and living, a
compendium of divine and therefore inerrant teachings on a full array of
subjects—including science, economics, health, politics, and romance.[15]”
Smith,
Christian (2011-08-01). Bible Made Impossible,
Wow I put this together on Word and it is all weird looking sorry about that. 🙂
Hey Luke when I posted this it crashed and because of that I posted it twice on accident.
I think Smith’s book has a lot of good stuff to say. I also think DeYoung hits the nail on the head about many of the problems with his arguments (misrepresentation and the false dichotomies were two that seemed to really frustrate me when I was reading it).
But I also think the good stuff is so good that a book like this might help keep things in “check” amongst some of the more radical proponents of solo scriptura (i.e., Fundamentalists and the uninformed).
I would really, really, REALLY like to read a review of that book by someone like Carson or Grant Osborne. And by “really,” I mean, “Make it happen Able!”
But I see this as a two sided coin. The “pervasive interpretive pluralism” presents challenges to Protestant readings of Scripture, and yet I don’t see how the solutions presented by Rome or Orthodoxy really solve it (I didn’t get the feeling that Christian was looking to “solve” problems but to raise awareness, so I’m not suggesting his proposal is completely off).
Is it possible that our stress upon the human conscious and “following your heart” and not “sinning against what you know to be true” has really become that much of a weakness? Or is it a tension?
I’m not sure…
Did you read the interaction between Peter J. Leithart and Smith at First Things? I thought that was interesting. But the best review was that of Robert Gundry’s… because he’s by no means a “Reformed biblicist” and his review might be taken seriously by those who aren’t in the calvinistic sector of the church 🙂 Maybe… ha ha ha.
It might sound like I didn’t like Smith at all… and that’s not it. I just think it needs to be hashed out more (the subject).
For what it’s worth, I think Michael Patton has a great little intro to this subject: http://www.reclaimingthemind.org/content/Parchmentandpen/In-Defense-of-Sola-Scriptura.pdf
I think Smith’s book has a lot of good stuff to say. I also think DeYoung hits the nail on the head about many of the problems with his arguments (misrepresentation and the false dichotomies were two that seemed to really frustrate me when I was reading it).
But I also think the good stuff is so good that a book like this might help keep things in “check” amongst some of the more radical proponents of solo scriptura (i.e., Fundamentalists and the uninformed).
I would really, really, REALLY like to read a review of that book by someone like Carson or Grant Osborne. And by “really,” I mean, “Make it happen Able!”
But I see this as a two sided coin. The “pervasive interpretive pluralism” presents challenges to Protestant readings of Scripture, and yet I don’t see how the solutions presented by Rome or Orthodoxy really solve it (I didn’t get the feeling that Christian was looking to “solve” problems but to raise awareness, so I’m not suggesting his proposal is completely off).
Is it possible that our stress upon the human conscious and “following your heart” and not “sinning against what you know to be true” has really become that much of a weakness? Or is it a tension?
I’m not sure…
Did you read the interaction between Peter J. Leithart and Smith at First Things? I thought that was interesting. But the best review was that of Robert Gundry’s… because he’s by no means a “Reformed biblicist” and his review might be taken seriously by those who aren’t in the calvinistic sector of the church 🙂 Maybe… ha ha ha.
It might sound like I didn’t like Smith at all… and that’s not it. I just think it needs to be hashed out more (the subject).
For what it’s worth, I think Michael Patton has a great little intro to this subject: http://www.reclaimingthemind.org/content/Parchmentandpen/In-Defense-of-Sola-Scriptura.pdf
Thanks to both of you. I’m a little aware of the content of the book and the arguments against it. You’ve given me a bit more of a picture. In the future, I’d be interested in any particular points of contact between what I’ll be writing about and his thoughts that might strike you as particularly interesting.
Fwiw, I think there has been a huge misunderstanding of the perspicuity of scripture fed by fundamentalist elements–wherein the scripture is clear on all things (AND clear in translation as much as in the original) rather than clear on those things most foundational to life and doctrine. This sets us up for the sort of fear-mongering of denominations that discern spiritual truths for us, tell us what is what, and expect their people to never consider another viewpoint on that passage as holding the potential to be just as “clear” or moreso than the “plain” read they’ve been handed. But that is more about primary illuminations than secondary, so I digress… :).
Fascinating! I look forward to reading this series in its entirety. 🙂