If you didn’t see my link to Nijay Gupta’s post sharing this thought provoking lecture by Richard Hays I want to bring it you reader’s attention one more time. As many of us in the low-Church tradition are forced to ask ourselves hard questions about biblicism’s inability to produce much more than interpretive chaos there are some who are pointing back to the Rule of Faith and the Creeds of the early Church. Now, as Hays (a Methodist) will share at the beginning of this lecture, even some high-Church folk like N.T. Wright prefer the route of historicism, and while I am sympathetic to Wright and others like him, I am increasingly willing to give someone like Hays the opportunity to help me think about things from another angle. If you’re in the same boat, you may enjoy this talk:
Audio/Video, Canon, Creeds, Hermeneutics, Richard B. Hays, Scripture
Richard Hays on Canon, Creed, and Hermeneutics
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When you say ‘biblicism’, what do you mean precisely? Does ‘biblicism’ include having a high regard for the bible, or is it only reserved for those (mostly American) believers who believe in ‘Inerrancy’?
Does the perspective contained in the ‘Chicago Statement’ qualify as ‘biblicism’?
I ask because there is no problem saying thing such as ‘certain views about the bible are ‘extreme’ or extra-biblical theologically’. However, if the intent is to undermine faith biblical truth more generally, that would be more problematic and somewhat un-Christian (even if somewhat trendy).
Accordingly a term like ‘biblicism’ can be too broad or narrow a brush depending upon its intended use.
I mean the idea that the Bible and only the Bible contributes to our understanding of orthodoxy, i.e. tradition is irrelevant, the contemporary guidance of the Spirit is minimized, and our experience and reason are mostly deceptive and therefore useless. The CSBI may be the most codified version of this idea, though ironically, it itself is an extra biblical creed!
Ah, makes sense. I’ve seen the argument made that believers need only faith, (not reason). For example there are some Christian’s who attack Christian apologists on the grounds that appeals to reason are unnecessary. I suspect that those inclined to ignore other sources of information about orthodoxy tend to favour ‘faith without reason’. Rationally there should be no problem including extra-biblical sources of knowledge, just as there should be no problems recognizing that not all sources carry the same weight or speak with the same authority.
The underlying issues is ‘what actually constitutes true orthodoxy?’. How do we know the orthodoxy received in the 21st century has not been corrupted in transmission? (If you have insights into this, posts along this line would be appreciated)
I’ve made arguments along these lines before. For example, modern theological terminology as a Frankenstein product of historical ignorance, poor exegesis due to intentional corruption of Greek word meaning, and Hebrew idiom masked by translation. A biblicist view would clearly be too restrictive to address issues such as this, and besides – it begs the question which ‘text’ do we use to explore these questions (text in translation or original manuscripts).
If we heed ‘tradition’ and its influence, we must not only use it to make positive cases for what constitutes orthodoxy, but also see its negative side as well (and this is where biblicism comes in I suspect – the influence of tradition has to be gauged against something).
The argument that our experience and reason are mostly deceptive is a bastard child of Calvinism’s Total Depravity. This too is ironic, in that Calvinism itself is a product of experience and reason. (I have very little respect for Calvinism’s influence in Christianity – it’s possible the worst thing that’s happened to the faith other than the historical abuses of the Catholic Church)
Indeed, I think the role of the Canon is to remind us of the narrative from which the Creeds derived, so it will continue to function as a critic of our traditions just as our traditions sometimes help function as a critic of our interpretations of the Canon.
I haven’t read enough of Calvin’s writings to assess him directly, but my experience with his intellectual descendants is usually more negative than positive.