The Centrality of Scripture, Part 2

In evaluating Webster’s “dogmatic relocation of Scripture,” as part of a larger trend to substitute “epistemological” ways of viewing Scripture for more “holistic” or “living” ways of seeing our own reading within the activity of God, we have asked about the What? the Why? and the How? of this relocation. We have one more elementary question before offering a critique.

The “Where” — Reading in the Economy of Grace

Other practical reasons exist to use the concept of sanctification here. Contrary to Modernity’s divorce of reason from virtue, “Reading Scripture is thus best understood as an aspect of mortification and vivification: to read Scripture is to be slain and made alive” (Holy Scripture, 88). Webster asks how to describe the reader’s activity in dogmatic terms, and he reiterates that “Scripture does not exist in abstraction from its readers” (70). The “creaturely counterpart of revelation is reverent attention to that text” (78).

This is not reading the Bible just like any other book. We do not stand over it, but it stands over us. Toward the end of showing this, Webster makes a useful contrast between two ways of reading. There is a late modern sort represented by Schopenhauer, and then a second way of reading is exemplified by Calvin and Bonhoeffer.

With the former, we see the “the ideal of spontaneous and self-possessive individuality” (Holy Scripture, 72). There was for Schopenhauer an inferior passivity of taking in a text, as opposed to the active “thinking for oneself” or “intellectual originality.” To read the thought of another is to have been coerced and stifled. It is to have been a “second hander,” content with the “crumbs” we get from reading others (72). Webster’s comments elsewhere about the vice of curiosity is most fitting in this place (73). In the latter model, knowledge of God is contrary to autonomous “thinking for oneself,” as we are “neither its masters nor its critics but learners in its school,” and “the heart of understanding is reverence and obedience towards the divine self-witness” (77-78).

Webster tells us why “reading” is used rather than the word “interpretation.” It is because it is “more practical” and “low-level,” and so more fitting for what Scripture does in the economy of grace, which is for the whole community and not simply the scholars (Holy Scripture, 86).

He lists three elements to recognize in any faithful reading within the economy of grace: 1. It is an episode in the history of sin and its overcoming; 2. It is of the clear word of God; 3. It is not the work of masters but of pupils in the school of Christ (77-101). 

Webster’s use of Ursinus’ little known work, “Hortatory Oration to the Study of Divinity,” deserves more attention to see whether or not it is forced. What makes this interesting is that it is a fragment of some of the earliest prolegomena material among the Reformed. It deals with the relation of Scripture to doctrine, but really Ursinus was spelling out his vision of the church as a learning community (107). In analyzing this, Webster gets around to telling us more of what he means by “the centrality of Scripture.” It comes to mean that function that unifies what the modern seminary has divided into “the four-fold disciplinary arrangement,” and that by bringing back the emphasis on church (practical dimension) and Word (exegetical dimension) (108).

Webster concludes, “There is no organising principle, whether doctrinal, philosophical or experiential, no prolegomena; and no interest in defence or apologetic commendation: the aim is simple summary description” (Holy Scripture, 113).

Unlike the modern, “fragmented,” fourfold division of theological encyclopedia, Ursinus divided the positive tasks of theology into three: 1. Catechesis, 2. Doctrine, 3. Exposition and mediation upon Scripture. We must ask whether or not this is a false comparison. Where Webster wants to unify objective divisions of theology, Ursinus is really only methodizing the positive instruction of the church when once the doctrine has already been formulated (121). 

Critical Evalualtion 1: False Dilemma

My first criticism of the Websterian proposal is that the choice between an epistemological and dogmatic vision of Scripture is a false dilemma. It is to pit what Scripture is against what Scripture does. Alternatively, we can see that it is precisely what Scripture is that grounds all that Scripture does. Ward agrees with Webster about the negative effects of reducing Scripture to “a preface or appendix to the central doctrines of the Christian faith …[as if it were] lacking deep roots in the rich glories of the character and actions of God himself” [1]. For all of that, Ward does not see the need to move to the other extreme. In short, why can the doctrine of Scripture not be both epistemological and dogmatic? Webster’s latent answer to this is not compelling. 

Underneath the false dilemma, it seems to me, are conflated foundations. A foundation to faith in apologetics is quite different from a methodological foundation in systematic theology. Consequently there are norms that are dogmatic norms. Moreover, a fallacy within the fallacy can be detected: that is, special pleading.

The fact of the matter is that all dogmatic schemes just will have some dogmatic norm. And that will be the case for Webster as surely as for the old Princeton school.

Can we detect some basic criteria in his vision that function normatively over other doctrinal inferences? Certainly. He has made the economy of Trinitarian works the measure by which we understand all else, including Scripture. But from where does he derive his understanding of this economy? The answer, quite simply, is Scripture. 

It is because theology is reason within the economy of grace, that it is “an irreducibly positive science” (Holy Scripture, 124). Let us grant that point. This still demands that Websterians show how all norms, demonstrations, and foundations equal “negative” and “critical science.” So we might say that there is a non-sequitur fallacy on top of the false dilemma. It simply does not follow that the Scriptures as a criteria for all theological matters is “negative,” unless, that is, one wants to believe things that its authority negates. 

Critical Evaluation 2: Reductionism That Undermines

My second criticism is at once systematic, polemical, and practical. First, we may observe how Webster defined revelation as “purposive.” He then defined that purpose as sanctifying and restoring God’s people. These purposes are realized in a churchly reading of Scripture. Now what follows? Revelation cannot have this purpose for the unregenerate, as they are not included in the covenant community, or at least not in any spiritually sanctifying way. However, in addition to its normative and sanctifying purposes for the church, we would at least all agree that revelation convicts the unbeliever. This is true of general revelation condemning the nations in Romans 1:18-20. This is also true of special revelation causing greater guilt for those nearer to the means of grace in the warning passages of Hebrews 6:4-6 and 10:26-30. Thus, the purposes assigned by Webster to divine revelation are not the whole picture.

Now if the reduction of revelation leads to Webster’s relocation, and if the relocation leads to gutting the traditional attributes from the nature of Scripture, then the reduction leads to an undermining of those attributes. What are authority, canon, inerrancy, and sufficient, but norms of sorts? If they are no longer norms, then they are not themselves.

But it may be asked: Although the logic here may be valid, are the premises sound? Let us take an example in order to see. Webster defines the authority of Scripture as “its Spirit-bestowed capacity to quicken the church to truthful speech and righteous action” (Holy Scripture, 52). What do we notice? Authority is functioning here the same way that Scripture as a whole functions in this model. No doubt divine authority in Scripture calls the true believer to attention. Isaiah 66:2 speaks of such a one trembling at God’s word. If we ask what exact object elicits this response, it will be said that God does. It is the self-attesting voice of the Spirit. We reply that this brings us full circle back to false dilemmas. Why can it not be both the internal testimony of the Spirit and the inherently authoritative quality of the word? 

With the clarity (or perspicuity) of Scripture, we have what is likely Webster’s most compelling argument for the dogmatic relocation, and it potentially leaves the traditional attribute intact, and in a way that may even seem to give it greater backing. He says, “Perspicuity only makes sense when seen in a soteriological context, that is, in relation to God’s act as Word and Spirit and the creature’s act of faith. Like other properties of Scripture, such as sufficiency, efficacy or perfection, clarity is not a formal or natural property of the text considered in isolation” (93). He then turns to the self-attesting nature of Scripture to cement the point: “it is not Scripture but God who as Word interprets himself through the Spirit’s work” (94). 

Now we must admit to this point as far as it goes. If the Scriptures were both clear and self-authenticating to all readers by virtue of the object being in front of them, well, then there would be a direct relationship between the amount of Bible-viewing and Scripture-hearing one does and genuine faith. But we know that this is not the case. The atheist divinity professor and the devil himself both know Scripture better than many true believers! So this clarity and self-authentication must be relativized in some sense to the triune God’s work in electing, redeeming, and regenerating the reader for whom the word will be both clear and self-authenticating. Having said that, what is the upshot for Webster?

It is not simply a “reordering” in a theology textbook. He says, “perspecuity is not to be thought of as in any simple way a property of Scripture antecedent to acts of reading” (94). In other words the property is wholly subjective and not at all objective.

Websterians may deny that this is the result, and that it is only perspecuity, as “the product of unaided exegetical prowess or technique” (94), that is in the crosshairs. 

Yet right when we are prepared to sympathize with Webster’s reworking, the Barthian element comes out of its hiding into plain view: “In sum: Scripture’s clarity is neither an intrinsic element of the text as text nor simply a fruit of exegetical labor; it is that which the text becomes as it functions in the Spirit-governed encounter between the self-presenting savior and the faithful reader” (95). So to reallocate the foundations of Scripture is not merely to retain their attributes as God’s word, and appreciate their more transformative task, but rather it is to come full circle back to the Barthian view of inspiration by different names.

Concluding Thoughts

It has been observed that for someone (a) arguing for academics to be brought back to the church for service to its people, and (b) relocating Scripture not as a mere tool of establishing epistemological certainty, over but all of life, Webster’s own lack of Scripture references and exegesis is conspicuous. Be that as it may, it was asked at the outset whether or not some of ambiguity in our doctrine of Scripture comes from imagery that can be used in multiple ways. In imagery of his own, Vanhoozer asks whether Scripture is the room, hallway, or foundation of the house of theology? By having “its own room” he means that it is one of the loci or heads of doctrine, whereas the hallway connects all the rooms [2]. It would seem that Vanhoozer is big on imagery, and in another he cannot get away from the concept of norm: “Tradition, the moon to Scripture’s sun” [3]. This in a nutshell is the trouble with a dogmatic account of that which is irreducibly normative. The sun which gives its life and warmth cannot do so without shedding its light. 

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1. Ward, Words of Life, 16.

2. Vanhoozer, “Holy Scripture,” 38.

3. Vanhoozer, “Holy Scripture,” 51.