Scripture, Truth, Authority, and Interpretive Anarchy

Enjoying Calvin so far. With big questions in tow. And so far, my questions are only getting bigger.

[Update: thanks to Eric’s helpful comment, I have made a few changes to this post. The original is the main text and the changes are in brackets and in bold, for clarity. Thanks to Eric for the gentle criticism.]

In chapters 1–6 of Book 1, Calvin looks at how humanity knows God. God is always and everywhere revealing Himself, but humanity is too sinful and stupid to see Him properly. If we did, we would recognize our failings. I loved this image: “If, at mid-day, we either look down to the ground, or on the surrounding objects which lie open to our view, we think ourselves endued with a very strong and piercing eyesight; but when we look up to the sun, and gaze at it unveiled, the sight which did excellently well for the earth is instantly so dazzled and confounded by the refulgence, as to oblige us to confess that our acuteness in discerning terrestrial objects is mere dimness when applied to the sun. Thus, too, it happens in estimating our spiritual qualities” (1.1.2). Nice: God’s brightness outshines us by so much that we recognize our dimness in comparison. This contrast has so far remained a foundational part of Calvin’s ways of talking about God and humanity — we are super dim/stupid/sinful and God is astonishingly bright/sovereign/holy. Even to get a basic knowledge of Him, we must receive from Scripture because of other bad guides and because of human foolishness.

Chapters 7–9 (so far; maybe this conversation continues) deal with the authority and interpretation [better: “the authority and nature”] of Scripture, and this is where I’d like to focus. Chapter 7 looks at Scripture’s authority against the authority of the church [better: “Chapter 7 looks at how the believer knows she can trust the authority of Scripture, by the Spirit or by some other source like the church or human reason”]; chapter 8 deals with Scripture’s credibility; and chapter 9 speaks against those who want to replace the Scriptures with personal revelations from the Spirit. I enjoyed chapter 8, found chapter 9 very helpful, but find myself troubled by chapter 7, and I want to throw it to the group to help me see how valid my uncertainties are.

In chapter 7, Brother John tells us that the church doesn’t get to accredit Scripture, that Scripture has authority over the church and that the Spirit confirms that. Yes! But, wait a minute: who then gets to say whose movings of the Spirit are authoritative or true? Does each individual believer get their own say? The Spirit ought to speak in unison with Himself; but, what if it appears that He doesn’t? Or, what if some are convinced by the Spirit, and others are convinced by other rumblings in their bellies; how can the rest of us tell the difference? I can imagine a faithful, godly Catholic of the era arguing that Calvin’s arguments and the system that might be built on those arguments might lead to interpretive chaos. Which, it appears, is what has happened in fact. I don’t know that we can lay all the blame at Calvin’s feet, but (as I read him) his argument here is consistent with the interpretive Babel (to borrow Vanhoozer’s language) in which we currently live.

I have had several conversations with folks at our church about politics and political theology and all in this season, and the most disturbing comment I’ve received over was this (though this was the worst, not the only, of its kind): “Well, I believe that you believe that that is true.” As in, “You don’t get your information from the same sources that I do, and therefore even your facts are suspect.” As in, “I can kind of trust you sometimes, and I even believe that your heart is in the right place, but I cannot trust that you have any idea what you are talking about. I have had things confirmed within me that prevent me from trusting anyone that argues with me on these points.” Within the church, people are refusing to trust each other in any meaningful way because we all know what we have confirmed within ourselves. We are all in the world of news bubbles and fake news and information bubbles and fake information. Even what counts as a fact is contested.

So, I get nervous when Calvin says “A most pernicious error has very generally prevailed, i.e., that Scripture is of importance only insofar as conceded to it by the suffrage of the church; as if the eternal and inviolable truth of God could depend on the will of men.” He goes on to say that the church’s guarantee of the Scripture’s authority is “a great insult to the Holy Spirit” (1.7.1). In other words, the church is a human institution and the Spirit is from God, separate from the church. So, step 1: church is separate from Spirit. Step 2: “the testimony of the Spirit is superior to reason” (1.7.4). Yes, again! Absolutely. Calvin has already laid out a persuasive case that humanity, including our reason, is fallen. My one concern at this point is that Calvin has also removed the Spirit from the church, so now I want to know who gets to properly interpret what the Spirit is testifying. If not the church, or reason, then how do we know when we are hearing the Spirit and not just our digestive systems, or our desires, or our deceitful hearts? [Or, maybe this only applies to our knowledge of the Scripture’s authority and not to Scriptural interpretation itself? In which case, why the distinction here?] Step 3: Who gets to properly interpret Scripture, Brother John? [And here, I would want to totally rephrase my question. Instead of asking, “Who gets to interpret Scripture?”, I should be asking, “Who knows that Scripture is true and authoritative?”] “Those who are inwardly taught by the Holy Spirit”, those who don’t rely “either on our own judgment or that of others … but, in a way superior to human judgment, feel perfectly assured” (1.7.5). He explains how he sees this assurance as different from the false confidence that people feel in superstitions — the latter is for “miserable men whose minds are enslaved” and the former belongs to “we [who] feel a divine energy living and breathing in it”. In short, the ones who may properly interpret [or, “the ones who know the truth and authority of”] the Scriptures are those who feel assured that it’s the Spirit’s voice they are hearing. (Right? Am I missing Calvin’s point?)

This makes me more than nervous. Calvin has, in his theory, removed the Spirit from the church and granted interpretive authority [I stand by this claim, mostly; the individual is still the interpreter of whether or not the Scriptures are worthy of authority, though what follows is stated too harshly] to the individual believer who feels most strongly (more or less; but please show me where it is “less”). I understand that the church of Calvin’s day showed little to no evidence of the Spirit, but ideally the Spirit exercises His authority in Scripture and in the church. Yes, the Spirit convicts, leads, challenges, comforts, and grows individual believers but He also inhabits Christ’s bride and empowers her to bear God’s image in the world. This image bearing role includes the authority to properly interpret Scripture against false teachers (there is a long tradition within the church, back to Irenaus at least, that only the true church gets to properly interpret Scripture because of the pernicious and widespread influence of heresies). Obviously, a church without the Spirit is not properly the church and so cannot provide proper interpretive authority but a church inhabited by the Spirit is, to my mind, necessary to help the believer properly interpret Scripture [And I need to wait and read more to know if Calvin agrees with this point; I will withhold judgment]. Without the authority of the church, we are left with just our own sense of our own feelings, exactly the situation we are in today.

Obviously, if the Church had not abused authority in the ways that it had, then Calvin would have no reason to argue the ways that he does, so it’s hardly fair to blame only him. And, he will surely have much more to say about the church and Scripture and truth and authority and all. But, his arguments so far fit quite nicely with what we might call interpretive anarchy.

Blessings,

Josh