A WESLEYAN HERMENEUTIC PERSONAL REFLECTIONS
Introduction
The topic of “how to interpret Scripture is relevant to us as Wesleyans for two basic reasons:
First, and most profoundly we live in the midst of a postmodern culture, a culture that at its philosophical foundation has rejected (1) the certainty of knowledge, (2) the objectivity of knowledge, and (3) the goodness of knowledge. To put it perhaps too simply, in relation to the interpretation and use of the Bible there is no longer any validity in exegesis (a reading out), only in eisegesis (a reading in). In our culture generally the Scriptures no longer function as an objective authority, often not even in the church—yes, including the evangelical church!
Secondly, and probably closest to us is the view and use of Scripture inherent in most evangelical radio and television programs and present in much of the popular evangelical literature. As influenced generally by the Calvinistic tradition it is often not in tune with the Wesleyan tradition, its spirit and perspective as you and I have experienced it.
A truly Wesleyan hermeneutic (1) puts the second in proper perspective, and (2) shows the way to an effective challenge to the first in the cause of the biblical message, the Gospel of Jesus, the Son of God—“the gospel of God” (Romans 1:1).
We begin by listening to the Scriptures testimony to their own nature and function:
How can young people keep their way pure? By guarding it according to your word. . . . I treasure your word in my heart, so that I may not sin against you. . . . Your word is a lamp to my feet and a light to my path (Psalm 119:9, 11, 105).
They said to each other, “Were not our hearts burning within us while he was talking to us on the road, while he was opening the scriptures to us?” (Luke 24:32).
Remember Jesus Christ, raised from the dead, a descendent of David—that is my Gospel, for which I suffer hardship, even to the point of being chained like a criminal. But the word of God is not chained (2 Timothy 2:8-9).
All scripture is inspired by God and is useful for teaching, for reproof, for correction, and for training in righteousness, so that everyone who belongs to God may be proficient, equipped for every good work (2 Timothy 3:16-17).
So we have the prophetic message more fully confirmed. You will do well to be attentive to this as to a lamp shining in a dark place, until the day dawns and the morning star rises in your hearts. First of all you must understand this, that no prophecy of scripture is a matter of one’s private interpretation, because no prophecy ever came by human will, but men and women moved by the Holy Spirit spoke from God (2 Peter 1:19-21).
One Wesleyan’s Hermeneutic
The Nature of the Scriptures as the Christian's Primary Authority for Faith and Life: Three Foundational Principles
The Scriptures are Incarnational--a human book partaking of human history and its literary forms and processes, time and culturally conditioned, and therefore their study must begin at this literary and historical level.
The Scriptures are Christological--a Christ-centered book given by God, designed to function as a witness to faith, consisting of a prophetic pre-witness (OT) and an apostolic post-witness (NT) to Jesus Christ the incarnate Son of God, in whom revelation, par excellence, centers, and thus a witness whose character can be fully clarified only by literary and historical questioning.
The Scriptures are God-breathed--a Holy Spirit book that exists and functions as the Word of God only in dynamic union with the Living Word, the Risen Christ, thus fulfilling their Christological function. So it is the Holy Spirit who speaks the Word of God to us as we give serious attention to the incarnational nature of the Bible. Therefore I function without hesitation or apology
as a convinced evangelical, that is, I believe that God has spoken and still speaks in fullness and with finality in his Son Jesus Christ to whom the Scriptures bear adequate and accurate witness, and
as a critical scholar excitedly and fearlessly willing to investigate in historical and literary context the ways in which God has chosen to speak redemptively to humankind.
This hermeneutic neither demands nor excludes inerrancy, but it does render it a secondary issue.
II. Some Wesleyan Hermeneutical Statements
John Wesley: Preface to Sermons.
“5. To candid, reasonable men, I am not afraid to lay open what have been the inmost thoughts of my heart. I have thought, I am a creature of a day, passing through life as an arrow through the air. I am a spirit come from God and returning to God; just hovering over the great gulf, till a few moments hence, I am no more seen--I drop into an unchangeable eternity! I want to know one thing, the way to heaven--how to land safe on that happy shore. God Himself hath condescended to teach the way: for this very end He came from heaven. He hath written it down in a book. O give me that book! At any price give me the book of God! I have it. Here is knowledge enough for me. Let me be homo unius libri [a man of one book]. Here then I am, far from the busy ways of men. I sit down alone: only God is here. In His presence I open, I read his Book; for this end, to find the way to heaven. Is there doubt concerning the meaning of what I read? Does anything appear dark or intricate? I lift up my heart to the Father of Lights: "Lord, is it not Thy word, 'If any man lack wisdom, let him ask of God'? Thou 'givest liberally, and upbraidest not.' Thou hast said, 'If any be willing to do Thy will, he shall know.' I am willing to do, let me know, Thy will." I then search after and consider parallel passages of Scripture, ‘comparing spiritual things with spiritual.’ I meditate thereon with all the attention and earnestness of which my mind is capable. If any doubt still remains, I consult those who are experienced in the things of God; and then the writings whereby, being dead, they yet speak. And what I thus learn, that I teach. I have accordingly set down in the following sermons what I find in the Bible concerning the way to heaven, with a view to distinguish this way of God from all those which are the inventions of men. I have endeavoured to describe the true, the scriptural, experimental religion, so as to omit nothing which is a real part thereof, and to add nothing thereto which is not. . . . But some may say I have mistaken the way myself, although I take upon me to teach it to others. It is probable many will think this; and it is very possible that I have. But I trust, whereinsoever I have mistaken, my mind is open to conviction. I sincerely desire to be better informed. I say to God and man, ‘What I know not, teach thou me.’ Are you persuaded you see more clearly than me? It is not unlikely that you may. Then treat me as you would desire to be treated yourself upon a change in circumstances. Point me out a better way than I have yet known. Show me it is so by plain proof of Scripture. And if I linger in the path I have been accustomed to tread, and am therefore unwilling to leave, labour with me a little, take me by the hand, and lead me as I am able to bear. Be not displeased if I entreat you not to beat me down in order to quicken my pace. I can go but feebly and slowly at best—then, I should not be able to go at all.. . . . . . For God’s sake, if it be possible to avoid it let us not provoke one another to wrath. Let us not kindle in each other this fire of hell, much less blow it up into a flame. If we could discern the truth by that dreadful light, would it not be loss rather than gain? For how far is love, even with many wrong opinions, to be preferred before the truth itself without love? We may die without the knowledge of many truths and yet be carried into Abraham’s bosom. But if we die without love, what will knowledge avail?”
Wesley’s hermeneutic as displayed here (1) affirmed the primacy and sufficiency of Scripture for the message of salvation; (2) stressed the indispensability of the Holy Spirit and the community of faith for an accurate reading of Scripture; (3) saw the necessity of humility as to one’s understanding of the Scriptures; and (4) preferred love before truth as over against truth without love in holding and defending one’s opinions..
Manual Church of the Nazarene
"We believe in the plenary inspiration of the Holy Scriptures, by which we understand the 66 books of the Old and New Testaments, given by divine inspiration, inerrantly revealing the will of God concerning us in all things necessary to our salvation, so that whatever is not contained therein is not to be enjoined as an article of faith. (Luke 24:44-47; John 10:35; 1 Corinthians 15:3-4; 2 timothy 3:15-17; 1 Peter 1:10-12; 2 Peter 1:20-21).”
This statement affirms the accuracy and sufficiency of the Scriptures’ witness to God’s revelation in his Son Jesus, and encourages us to trust completely in the God of whom it speaks for our salvation and for our guidance in life..
This statement does not include the necessity of defending the Bible in historical detail and scientific correctness from a modern perspective, but allows its historical and scientific inferences to be that of the Scriptures’ own time.
H. Orton Wiley
"The Bible occupies an intermediate position between the partial revelation of God in nature and the perfect revelation of God in Christ--the Personal Word. If we place at the very center of Revelation the idea of the Eternal Word and draw about it a series of concentric circles, the first and nearest would represent the Word incarnate, or the revelation of God in Christ, the Personal Word. The second circle farther removed would represent the Bible as the Written Word It is in this sense that the Bible is at once the Word of God and the record of that Word. It bears the same relation to the living and Personal Word that our spoken and recorded words bear to our own persons. The third and outer circle would represent the revelation of God in nature and the created universe. In order, therefore, to correctly understand the Bible as the written Word, we must estimate it in its relation to nature on the one hand and the Personal Word on the other. . . . As already noted, the Bible must ever be held in proper relation to the Personal Word lest men substitute the written Word for Christ, the Living Word. When that is done men become bound by legal rather than by spiritual bonds. Religious knowledge becomes formal rather than spiritual. Christ tends to become a mere historical figure, not a living Reality More attention is given to creeds than to Christ. Christian experience is likely to become a mere intellectual assent to a creed than a vital personal contact with Deity. The Bible thus divorced from the mystical connection with the Personal Word becomes in a sense a usurper, a pretender to the throne.”
Some key phrases include “an intermediate position,” “spiritual bonds,” and “mystical Key concepts include “an intermediate position between the partial revelation of God in nature and the perfect revelation of God in Christ,” “a series of concentric circles . . . the Bible is at once the Word of God and the record of that Word,” “spiritual” rather than legal bonds, and “mystical connection with the Personal Word.”
Asbury Theological Seminary
We believe in the divine inspiration, truthfulness, and authority of both the Old and New Testaments, the only written Word of God, without error in all that it affirms. The Scriptures are the only infallible rule of faith and practice. The Holy Spirit preserves God's Word in the church today and by it speaks God's truth to peoples of every age.
Key phrases are “without error in all that it affirms,” “only infallible rule of faith and practice,” and “the Holy Spirit . . . by it speaks God’s truth to peoples of every age.”
William J. Abraham
Several years ago a stimulating essay appeared from the pen of William J. Abraham, "The Concept of Inspiration in the Classical Wesleyan Tradition," in Kenneth Kinghorn, ed. Celebration of Ministry: Essays in Honor of Frank Bateman Stanqer (Wilmore, Kentucky: Francis Asbury Publishing Co., 1982), 33-47.
In a review of the book in the Wesleyan Theological Journal a year after its publication I commented on Abraham’s article as follows:
“Significant for Wesleyans in this day of the inerrancy watershed is the chapter by William J. Abraham, . . . 'The Concept of Inspiration in the Classical Wesleyan Tradition' (pp. 34-7). As he examines Wesley's conception of divine inspiration, 'a feature of Wesley's doctrine of Scripture that does not fit the versions of historical Christian orthodoxy now currently available' (p. 34), Abraham opens some fascinating new avenues for our continued exploration. Abraham sees an unresolved tension in Wesley between his deductive and inductive approaches to scripture. On the one hand Wesley is committed to dictation in a way that appears to place him with contemporary inerrantists. But on the other, with his attention to the actual phenomena of scripture in which he admits the possibility of error, he can also be viewed with those who find the authority of scripture 'in its ability to bring people into a saving relationship with God through Jesus Christ' (p. 34). Wesley's famous 'man of one book' passage clearly points in that direction. Wesley does not himself address this unresolved tension between his commitment and his research. Abraham asserts that to identify Wesley as a modern fundamentalist in his understanding of scripture would be seriously to distort his intention. Abraham then explores, after citing Luther and Calvin, the considerable Wesleyan discussion of inspiration from Wesley's day until the present--Clark, Watson, Nast, Pope, Miley, Wiley, etc. With perhaps the notable exception of the German, William Nast (1807-1899), in Abraham's view 'the classical Wesleyan tradition shares the confusion that generally pervades the Protestant heritage' (p. 44), the treating of inspiration and revelation as more or less identical. In other words the tension was relieved by the dominance of the deductive approach with even H. Orton Wiley failing 'to inhibit modern conservative Wesleyanism from taking over the position of Warfield on inspiration' (p. 43). Abraham concludes that the Wesleyan heritage is rich and complex from which much can be learned. He suggests that although it is deficient, a deficiency 'due in large measure to a failure to reflect sensitively on the meaning of religious language' (p. 44), yet 'the recovery of the riches and genius of our tradition is surely one of the great tasks that confronts us in the immediate future' (p. 44). The message I hear in Abraham's provocative essay is that our Wesleyan tradition calls for the task that will fulfill the hope imbedded within it, the construction of an approach to scripture that will do full justice to the nature of scripture.”
Particularly helpful for our purposes is Abraham’s identification of the deductive/inductive tension in Wesley and in the heirs of his tradition. This tension furnishes us with a paradigm with which we can put the issues before us in an illuminating perspective.
The Inerrancy Issue: Two Approaches
The issue of biblical inerrancy raises the question of the divine-human character of Scriptures as written. Two approaches can be taken:
One: Affirm by faith the “what” of the Scriptures as the Word of God and take their human character seriously in order to discover the “how”—therefore open to historical and literary research and subject to one kind of risk—the risk of obscuring the divine character of the Scriptures.
[By the “what” I mean the fact of the inspiration of the Bible, that is, its nature as the Word of God. By the “how” I mean those human processes that brought the Bible into being, that is, its nature as the words of men.]
Two: Affirm by faith both the fact of the divine "what" and the character of the "how" of the Scriptures as the Word of God—therefore many issues are closed by our particular evangelical tradition (as perceived by us), and therefore subject to another kind of risk—the risk of obscuring the human character of the Scriptures.
Question: Which approach contains the greatest risk to the life of faith? We will all have to decide for ourselves as we encounter the biblical witness (1) to the gospel and (2) to the nature of revelation. We make a faith choice!
Diagram of the two approaches
GOD | By listening to Scripture
That is, the Holy Spirit speaking through it in the context of the Church convinces of the "what" of Scripture, that it is the Word of God—A God who is . . .
A God of A God of Sovereign Perfection Sovereign Freedom
So we determine the character of the So we determine the character of the human “how” by deduction from our human “how” by induction from the perception of the divine “what”—the risk inspired text itself—the risk of sub- of subjecting the Scriptures to our chosen jecting the Scriptures to our human tradition. intellects.
The deductive and inductive approaches must be held in tension with one another, each allowed to function as a balance to and a corrective for the other.
A Wesleyan Perspective on the Bible as a Divine-Human Document
Is to be loved with all the heart as the speaking of God: the fact of revelation.
Is to be loved with all the mind as a literary product of history: the method of revelation.
A lack of proper tension or balance between the fact and the method of revelation compromises either the humanness or the divineness of Scripture.
To use one’s theological presuppositions concerning the fact of revelation to predetermine the method of revelation is to undercut the fully human as the mode of revelation—therefore a docetic view of Scripture compromising the modality of the incarnation.
To use one’s literary and historical inquiry into the method of revelation to limit the fact of revelation is to undermine the divine speaking in the fully human—therefore resulting in a purely human view of Scripture.
But the appropriate relationship (dialogical) between the fact and the method of revelation will result in . . .
a profound certainty of faith in the Bible as a divine book, and
in more questions than answers regarding the Bible as a fully human book,
therefore setting both the heart and the mind free to truly live “by faith in the Son of God who loved [us] and gave himself for [us]”—a liberation from a “defensive” stance. For your faith in the Bible as the Word of God, and thus your faith in God, is no longer dependent on your ability to find or hold the “right” answers to the literary and historical questions posed by an open-minded and open-hearted study of the biblical texts, but on the witness of the Spirit and the proving of the Bible in life: “be transformed by the renewing of your mind, so that you may discern what is the will of God—what is good and acceptable and perfect:” (Romans 12:2).
Conclusion for This Wesleyan
The Scriptures are Incarnational--a human book . . .
The Scriptures are Christological--a Christ-centered book . . .
The Scriptures are God-breathed--a Holy Spirit book . . .
In a monastery in Holland around the middle of the fourteenth century, one has written of God’s use of his Word:
To some men I speak ordinary things; to some, special things. To some I appear sweetly in signs and symbols; to some I give great understanding of Scripture and open to them high, secret mysteries. There are in books the same voice and the same letters read, but they do not instruct all people alike, for I am within, secretly hidden in the letter, the Teach of truth, the Searcher of man’s heart, the Knower of thoughts, the Promoter of good works, and the Rewarder of all men, as my wisdom and goodness judge them to have deserved, and in no other way.
Psalm 1:1-3:
Happy are those who do not follow the advice of the wicked, or take the path that sinners tread, or sit in the seat of scoffers; but their delight is in the law of the LORD, and on this law they meditate day and night. They are like trees planted by streams of water, which yield their fruit in its season, and their leaves do not wither. In all they do they prosper.
With its belief in the Holy Spirit, who brings the Living Word to bear on the written Word, the Wesleyan perspective trusts primarily in the witness function of Scripture—that is,
(1) in relation to a rationalistic systematizing hermeneutic, a Wesleyan hermeneutic stresses what is primary or transcendent, and
(2) in relation to the denial of all rational certainty, a Wesleyan hermeneutic has confidence in a living transforming witness that demands an acceptance or rejection.
Presented 4/30/03 at an informal breakfast of retired ministers in Temeculah, California, at the home of Paul Simpson. Others present were Clari Kinsler, Roger Bowman, Tom Goble, Dean Shaw, Jim Tracy, & David Whitelaw. These reflections are based on lecture notes from the author’s course, “The Life of Holiness,” developed and taught at Point Loma Nazarene College. It was taught once at European Nazarene Bible College, now EuNC. Stanley J. Grenz, A Primer on Postmodernism (Grand Rapids: William B. Eerdmans Publishing Company, 1996), 165-166. By the designation “evangelical” here is meant the affirmations of historical Christianity, not necessarily the contemporary American use of the term. This distinction can be understood in part by observing the perspective and spirit of Wesley’s statement that follows, in contrast to that of some in contemporary American evangelicalism... Inerrancy, however, becomes a secondary issue. The Works of John Wesley, Volume 1: Sermons I, 1-33, ed. Albert C. Outler (Nashville: Abingdon Press, 1984), 104-107. Manual/2001-2005 Church of the Nazarene, “IV. The Holy Scriptures” (Kansas City, Missouri: Nazarene Publishing House, 2001), 27. This form of the statement was adopted by the General Assembly of 1928. Oral tradition indicates that the writer was H. Orton Wiley, then President of Pasadena College. See Paul T. Culbertson, "A History of Nazarene Doctrinal Positions on Biblical Authority," given at the Nazarene Theological Conference, December 1-3, 1975, on “The Nature of Biblical Authority,” 3. But there were precedents in the wording going back to the first Manual of the Church of the Nazarene (14) published in 1898. Its second statement read, “We believe . . . in the inspiration of the Holy Scriptures as found in the Old and New Testaments, and that they contain all truth necessary to faith and practice,” Culbertson, 1. President of Pasadena College 1926-1929, 1933-1949. He served as Professor of Theology and wrote the three volume Christian Theology. See following footnote. H. Orton Wiley and Paul T. Culbertson, Introduction to Christian Theology (Kansas City: Beacon Hill Press, 1945), 40-55. See H. Orton Wiley, Christian Theology, I (Kansas City: Beacon Hill Press, 1941). 135-143, 167-184. Here it is important to read Paul M. Bassett, "The Fundamentalist Leavening of the Holiness Movement, 1914-1940. The Church of the Nazarene: A Case Study," Wesleyan Theological Journal (Spring 1978), 65-85. As he documents the encroachment of fundamentalism on the Church, he points out that Wiley constructed a third Wesleyan alternative between liberalism and fundamentalism: “It remained to H. Orton Wiley both to offer a genuine Wesleyan alternative to Fundamentalism and modernism and to place the official theology of the Church of the Nazarene, if not the grass roots, back on truly orthodox turf..” 82. An independent Wesleyan theological seminary in Wilmore, Kentucky, serving the Methodist Church, the Free Methodist Church, and the Wesleyan Church, among others including occasional Nazarenes.. Catalogue, “Statement of Faith,” 4. William J. Abraham is Albert Cook Outler Professor of Wesley Studies at Perkins School of Theology, Southern Methodist University, Dallas, Texas. That is, revelation as the “what” and inspiration as the “how” of Scripture as the Word of God. Frank G. Carver, A Review of Kenneth Kinghorn, ed. Celebration of Ministry: Essays in Honor of Frank Bateman Stanqer (Wilmore, Kentucky: Francis Asbury Publishing Co., 1982), in the Wesleyan Theology Journal 18, 1 (Spring 1983), 123. Biblical Inerrancy is the view of biblical inspiration that holds that the Bible is an accurate guide not only to matters of faith and spiritual life but also to scientific and historical fact. Many modern inerrantists, however, limit the latter by appealing to the intention of the biblical text. The Chicago Statement on Biblical Inerrrancy should be read in this light examining each item for the tension between the deductive and the inductive, noting which statements illustrate the deductive approach and which statements contain an inductive element. The tension between kthe tow is usually resolved in favor of the deductive approach.
Galatians 2:20. This verse can be legitimately paraphrased as “but continue being transformed by the renewing of your mind in the Spirit so that you may discover as you live what the will of God is, what is inherently good, what is acceptable to God, and what fulfills the purpose of God’s saving action in your life.” Thomas a Kempis, The Imitation of Christ (Garden City, New York: Image Books, 1955), 166-167. This is a modern version based on the English translation made by Richard Whitford around the year 1530, edited with introduction by Harold C. Gardiner, S.J.
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Frank G. Carver