‍ 

Dialogue on the Perspicuity (Clarity) of Scripture (Part 1)

 

If the Bible’s so clear, why didn’t you understand it 

without an “external interpreter”?

 

Gary Hoge

 

You have argued for the inherent perspicuity and clarity of the Bible many times. So what I would like to know is why the Bible wasn’t perspicuous to you when you were a Fundamentalist.

 

Actually, the correct question to ask would be, “Why didn’t I see the teachings of the Bible then in the same way as I see them now?” The question that you asked betrays your misunderstanding of the doctrine of perspicuity. The problem lies in sinful hearts and minds, not in the perfect written Word of God.

 

If that’s true, then you’re right, I did misunderstand the doctrine of perspicuity. I thought it meant that the Bible was perspicuous. But apparently it means that the Bible would be perspicuous if we didn’t have sinful hearts and minds. Therefore, since you say the Bible is clear to you now, I can only assume that you have somehow managed to rid yourself of the sin that continues to cloud the minds of the rest of us. Congratulations. I guess that also explains why the Bible wasn’t clear to you when you were a Fundamentalist, because back then you were probably still a sinner. :-)

 

Seriously, I do appreciate your attempt to reconcile the claim that the Bible is clear with the fact that most Christians don’t understand it (i.e., most Christians are not Reformed Protestants), but the “sin explanation” seems rather weak. First, it does not account for the fact that biblical interpretation varies mainly by denomination, not by the spiritual condition of the individual. If sin were the primary causal factor in failing to understand the Bible, then the most devout and godly people in every denomination would interpret the Bible as you do. But that is not the case. The reality is that each denomination (including yours) tends to have a characteristic interpretation of the Bible to which all of its members, regardless of their spiritual condition, generally subscribe. Second, the “sin explanation” does not explain your own conversion. You achieved your newfound understanding of Scripture through an intense study of history books and Reformed commentaries, not by somehow improving the condition of your heart. In other words, you’ve identified the problem as spiritual (a mind clouded by sin), but your solution was intellectual (improved knowledge of history and theology).

 

I take it as axiomatic to any truly biblical apologetic that God has not spoken in such a way as to allow for someone to seek refuge from His judgments in the idea that “Well, God, you just weren’t really clear enough there for me to obey you.”

 

This objection begs the question by presuming that God has only spoken through Scripture, which is not true. He has also spoken through His apostles and prophets, through the law written on our hearts, and through the creation itself. As I recall, the apostle Paul said that the testimony of creation alone was sufficient to leave men “without excuse” (Rom. 1:20). Also, consider that somehow Christians were able to obey God for several decades before the New Testament was written, and for many more decades while its various letters were being slowly copied and circulated.

 

There are two ways of looking at the issue of perspicuity--a subjective way and an objective way. The Bible has always been clear in and of itself--objectively. However, it may or may not be clear to any particular individual (or collection of individuals)--subjectively.

 

I agree that no matter how clear a thing may be, there will always be some people who don’t get it, because, let’s face it, some people are just stupid. So your statement would make sense if most people understood the Bible in the same way, and only a few here and there didn’t get it. But that is not the case. In fact, from your perspective in the tiny Reformed community, you have to say that the overwhelming majority of Christians “don’t get it.” Only John Calvin and his spiritual descendants “get it.” That being the case, your statement is nonsense, and it ignores the very meaning of the word “clear.” When we say that a written document is “clear” we are saying nothing else but that its intended meaning is easily understood by its target audience. In other words, although “clarity” is a property of the document itself (based on its use of language, etc.), it is a property that is entirely dependent upon, and measured relative to, the extent to which that document is understood by its target audience. A document whose use of language is such that the target audience easily understands the author’s intended meaning is said to be “clear.” Otherwise, it is “ambiguous.”

 

Now, if the Bible’s target audience were just Reformed Protestants, then I suppose you could claim that it is perspicuous, and you could prove it by the fact that Reformed Protestants generally agree on their interpretation of it. But obviously the Bible’s target audience also includes Baptists, Lutherans, Methodists, and even us Catholics. So you still have to explain why, if the Bible is oh-so-clear, most of the people to whom it was written can’t understand it. And if you fall back on the “sin explanation” again, you’ll have to explain why only Reformed Protestants are free from the spiritual darkness that apparently continues to befuddle the rest of Christianity.

 

While I noted somewhere on your site (or perhaps in an article you linked to, I don’t remember) someone almost mocking the so-called “sin explanation,” this is exactly what the Bible itself teaches about both believers and unbelievers. As unbelievers, sin darkens our minds so that we “cannot understand the things of God” (1 Cor. 2). As believers, sin often clouds our minds, as was the case with the Corinthians and Galatians that Paul wrote to and with the “ignorant and unstable” that Peter wrote about.

 

I agree with you about the unbelievers, and I acknowledge that one must be assisted by God to understand the things of God, including Scripture. But the question is not whether the Bible is perspicuous to unbelievers (it isn’t), but whether it’s generally perspicuous to its target audience of faithful Christians. I submit that it is not, and that this is proved by your own experience, and by mine, and by that of countless millions of other Christians who all claim to believe “only what the Bible says,” but who believe that it says radically different things. To cite just one example, you’ve already admitted that the unanimous teaching of Christianity before Calvin was that water baptism confers regeneration and the remission of sins. But Calvin taught otherwise. Now, from where I sit, the fact that he was alone on this point just proves that he was wrong. But if he was right, then I don’t see how you can say that the Bible is perspicuous if it took fifteen centuries before someone was finally able to discern its true teachings about how one is regenerated, and how one’s sins are remitted.

 

Also, contrary to your assertion, the Bible nowhere teaches that believers don’t understand its teachings because their minds are clouded by sin. It is true that a veil covers the hearts of unbelievers, but “whenever anyone turns to the Lord, the veil is taken away” (2 Cor. 3:16). In fact, in the very verse to which you alluded above, 2 Pet. 3:16, the Apostle tells us that the reason some people distort Paul’s writings is not because their minds are clouded by sin, but because “his letters contain some things that are hard to understand.” “Hard to understand” is the opposite of “easy to understand,” which, of course, is the definition of the word “perspicuous.” What Peter is saying is that if one is not otherwise well grounded in the Gospel (i.e., if one is ignorant and/or unstable), it is possible to distort Paul’s writings precisely because some of them are not perspicuous, but are “hard to understand.”

 

The fact that any given person (or even any given millions of persons!) does not understand something in Scripture does not logically translate to the conclusion that Scripture is unclear.

 

Sure it does, unless those millions of people, including entire denominations, are all mentally defective and incapable of grasping something that’s clearly presented in writing. But assuming they’re mentally competent, it seems to me that if they all believe different doctrines, and if they all point to Scripture to establish those doctrines, then there are only two logical conclusions. Either everyone but [insert your denomination here] is interpreting in bad faith, deliberately suppressing the clear teachings of Scripture, or else Scripture must be ambiguous, at least with respect to the disputed doctrines.

 

If, as the written Word of God, the Bible is perfect, how can it be charged with being too obscure to understand without the aid of an infallible external interpreter?

 

You tell me. You yourself found it to be too obscure to understand until R.C. Sproul and other Reformed interpreters explained it to you. As long as you were “ignorant of history, theology, and external study aids,” and without “those dreaded commentaries and history books,” you were unable to discern the “clear teachings” of the Bible for yourself just by reading it. So how can you now argue that because the Bible is perfect, it cannot be too obscure to understand without an external interpreter? Why didn’t you understand it without all of those external interpreters?

 

This same logic also applies to your trust in Rome’s “infallible” interpretations of Scripture. Unless you like to flirt with infinite regresses of authority, you’re going to have to admit that you act as if Rome’s magisterial pronouncements are basically clear enough for you to understand at least the high points of them.

 

Well, I think they are basically clear, but so what? Obviously a modern-language, narrative explanation of the Bible is going to be clearer than the Bible itself. Likewise, I assume that the Reformed books and commentaries you mentioned are also clearer than the Scriptures they seek to explain; otherwise why write them?

 

Of course there are times when you may need to go to your bishop or others and ask for clarification of a point, but all you are logically entitled to say about the Magisterium’s pronouncement is that you personally don’t understand it, not that it is intrinsically unclear.

 

By what rule of logic am I precluded from saying that a given pronouncement by the Magisterium is intrinsically unclear?

 

Indeed, with you being a fallible individual and all, how could you possibly charge the Magisterium with a lack of clarity? How could you ever “know for sure” (to borrow a phrase you use with me) that the Magisterium was in fact unclear?

 

You appear to be confusing “truth of content” with “clarity of presentation.” I might not be able to charge the Magisterium with error, but I could certainly charge it with ambiguity if it issues a statement that most people don’t understand. If most people don’t understand it, then it is “unclear,” by definition. The advantage we have is that if the Magisterium issues a pronouncement that most people find unclear, it can react to that and issue a clarifying statement. But if you rely on the Bible alone, and you don’t understand something in the Bible, all you can do is reread it.

 

But you don’t rely on the Bible alone, do you? In spite of its supposed clarity, you found that you could not understand it until R.C. Sproul, D. James Kennedy, and James White, etc., told you what it really means. And even now, although you feel you understand the Bible clearly, you still disavow the private interpretation standard of the Baptists. Instead, you conform your doctrines to those of the Reformed Church and its magisterial documents (The Institutes of the Christian Religion, The Westminster Confession of Faith, The Heidelberg Catechism, The Belgic Confession, The Canons of Dort, etc.). You rely on those creeds and confessions, and on the “living voice” of your church, to keep you from slipping into heresy. The only difference between you and me is that I admit the Bible is sometimes ambiguous and that I need to follow the teachings of the Church in order to be sure I’ve understood it properly. You deny that in theory, but affirm it in practice. When it comes to the clarity of Scripture, you talk like a Baptist, but behave like a Catholic.

 

So to sum up the answer to your question, there are two kinds of clarity being dealt with in the perspicuity of Scripture issue. When I was a Fundamentalist, of course I thought the Bible “clearly” taught Fundamentalist doctrines. Now that I am Reformed, of course I think the Bible “clearly” teaches Reformed doctrines.

 

Perhaps when God enlightens you further, you will see that the Bible “clearly” teaches Catholic doctrines. :-)

 

Similarly, you used to [think that] the Bible “clearly” taught Fundamentalist doctrines, while now, you think the Bible “clearly” teaches Catholic doctrines (if you didn’t think this, there would be no reason for you quote all those baptism verses to me as if you expect me to simply “see” that they teach regenerative water baptism).

 

This is an objection you’ve raised before. You wonder how I can argue that the Bible is not basically perspicuous, and then turn around and quote it to you to prove that it “obviously” teaches my doctrines. Let me see if I can explain. When I claim that the Bible lacks clarity, I don’t mean that every single verse is an unfathomable mystery, and that we’re all just sitting around, scratching our heads, waiting for the Pope to explain it to us. On the contrary, I do think that there are many things that are taught clearly in Scripture. For example, the bodily resurrection of Jesus is pretty hard to miss, and therefore, most groups don’t miss it. But on many other issues (e.g., infant baptism), the Bible is not so clear, and its teachings are not so obvious that sincere believers will be inexorably led to the right interpretation. In other words, the Bible is not clear enough to guarantee that sincere believers will be able to correctly reconstruct the whole Gospel from its pages alone. And that is essentially what Protestants try to do with it. Some try to reconstruct the Gospel for themselves, and others follow the reconstructions devised by their denomination’s founder(s).

 

Also, when I say that the Bible is not perspicuous, I don’t mean that one interpretation isn’t better than another, all things considered. I simply mean that if we confine ourselves to the Bible alone, on many issues more than one interpretation is possible, and sometimes even plausible--hence the proliferation of denominations in the Protestant world. So when I quote Scripture to you, I’m not trying to prove that our interpretation is the only plausible interpretation, and that yours is impossible. I’m simply trying to show that ours is the best interpretation, given the text and the context. I also try to show that our interpretation is consistent with what the early Christians say they learned from the Apostles. So what I’m hoping that you will simply “see,” as I explain these things to you, is that when all of the evidence from Scripture and history is considered as a whole, the Catholic explanation is the one most likely to be right. Yes, other interpretations are possible, but they’re not very likely. Thus, in my opinion, accepting the Catholic interpretation is simply a matter of hearing hoofbeats behind you and thinking “horse,” not “zebra.”

 

But note that everything I just said deals with what was/is going on in each of our own heads subjectively. Nothing I just said makes any impact on the objective clarity of the Bible. That objective clarity stands regardless of whether or not anyone personally experiences it.

 

Someday I hope it will dawn on you how truly absurd that statement is. For you to insist that the Bible possesses an “objective clarity” even if no one can understand what it’s saying, is nonsense. It is simply Reformed doublespeak. “Obscurity is clarity.”

 

So when you press me for an answer to the real question you should be asking, “Why didn’t I see the teachings of the Bible THEN in the same way as I see them now?”, I would respond that back then, I was totally ignorant of history, theology, and external study aids (as Fundamentalists tend to be). Additionally, those who were my leaders were ignorant as well (preferring to listen to “the Holy Spirit” speak to their hearts rather than “quenching” Him by making use of those dreaded commentaries and history books!).

 

I don’t see how you can say that the Bible itself is “inherently clear” if you have to rely on history books, Reformed commentaries, and other study aids to tell you what it means, but at least “ignorance” is a more believable excuse for failing to understand the Bible than “a mind clouded by sin.” The problem for you, though, is that if you can’t discern the Bible’s true doctrines just by reading it, and instead have to rely on history books and commentaries to tell you what it means, then it is not “perspicuous,” as your own faith defines that word. The Westminster Confession of Faith (WCF) claims that “those things which are necessary to be known, believed, and observed for salvation are so clearly propounded, and opened in some place of Scripture or other, that not only the learned, but the unlearned, in a due use of the ordinary means, may attain unto a sufficient understanding of them.” (WCF, I:7, emphasis mine).

 

The WCF says that the Bible is so clear that even the “unlearned” can understand it, but you admit that you (who are actually quite learned) couldn’t understand it without consulting history books, Reformed commentaries, and other study aids. How can that be, if the Bible itself is as clear as the WCF says it is? Obviously, the study aids you needed cannot be the “ordinary means” by which the unlearned can understand the Bible, because the unlearned can’t use such resources. Either they can’t access them, can’t read them, or can’t understand them. That is true now, and it was especially true when the WCF was written, because back then most people were illiterate.

 

In a previous letter, you attempted to get out of the corner into which the WCF has painted you by explaining the “ordinary means” this way:

 

According to a Presbyterian pastor I asked about this, the phrase “ordinary means” refers to the idea that (quoting his words) “the Church is normally responsible under God for the preaching of the Gospel, and that one is not converted ‘ordinarily’ apart from the Gospel preached, which is assumed to be within the Church . . . the Church is the ‘ordinary means’ because God has instituted it to spread the Gospel”. So you see that the Westminster Confession is teaching the concept of an authoritative Church which teaches “not only the learned, but the unlearned”, and that these people “may attain unto a sufficient understanding” of the doctrines necessary for salvation by a “due use of the ordinary means”, e.g., the preaching of the Word in the Church.

 

Okay, so now you’re saying that, in addition to history books and commentaries, the teaching of the Church is also “ordinarily” necessary in order to understand the Bible. That sounds like an argument for the perspicuity of the Church, and a concession that without such an “external interpreter,” the Bible itself is not perspicuous. Apparently, if you want to understand the Bible correctly you can’t just read it. You also need to study commentaries, history books, and other external study aids. And in addition to that, you ordinarily need the authoritative preaching of the Church to ensure a proper interpretation. Well, Tim, I really can’t argue with you here. You’ve made a fine defense of the Catholic position. Thanks!

 

But even deeper than all of that, I would say that God had not yet opened my eyes to the truths of His word.

 

Perhaps he still hasn’t. Perhaps the Catholic explanation is the right one after all, and you’re still too “blinded by sin,” or too “ignorant,” or whatever, to see it. After all, you’ve said that when you were a Fundamentalist, you thought you understood the truths of God’s Word, just as you think you do now. In fact, I’ll bet that at each denominational stop in your journey of faith, whether conservative Baptist, or radical Charismatic, or whatever, you thought the Bible was perfectly clear, didn’t you?

 

Never in all my time in Fundamentalist circles (whether conservative Baptist or radical Charismatic) did I experience anything like what happened to me when it rather suddenly became clear to me that things like sola fide and absolute predestination simply had to be true. (Of course, there was a period of time of fairly intense study preceding this internal experience of certainty, but, that actual experience did seem to come quite suddenly as I recall).

 

How many years did you spend in Fundamentalist circles, Tim? How many years did you spend reading the Bible for yourself, and hearing it preached, without being able to grasp that these Reformed doctrines were actually the “clear teachings” of Scripture and “simply had to be true”? It seems to me that once again your own testimony undercuts your argument. On the one hand, you want to uphold the Reformed doctrine of the perspicuity of Scripture and claim that the Bible is clear, but on the other hand, you have to admit that in spite of its alleged clarity, when you read it for yourself you could not recognize what you now say are its most basic teachings (sola fide and absolute predestination, etc.). It wasn’t until you spent “a period of time of fairly intense study” of Reformed apologetics that these things, allegedly the Bible’s most fundamental doctrines, “suddenly” became clear to you.

 

And so we’re right back where we started. I appreciate your efforts to grapple with this problem, but you still have not reconciled the theory that the Bible is perspicuous with the reality of your own inability to understand it, to say nothing of the similar inability of millions of other faithful Christians. If you still want to claim that the Bible is inherently perspicuous, you’re going to have to find a way to explain how intelligent, faithful Christians like yourself, and millions of others, can read it for many years without being able to discern its most basic teachings, if those teachings are in fact “so clearly propounded and opened” therein.

 

Part 1, Part 2