D.A. Carson on the Pros and Cons of the Postmodern Hermeneutic

Kirk E. Miller

I was finishing up D.A. Carson’s Exegetical Fallacies this afternoon (I’m writing this on 2.1.16); and I came across a section in which Carson evaluates what he calls “The New Hermeneutic.” It reminded me of another place in Carson’s writings where he tackles the same issue. And I decided these were worth sharing here.

I appreciate Carson’s even-handed approach, noting both the cons as well as the pros. I find this refreshing because, while there are obvious issues with the postmodern hermeneutic (or “The New Hermeneutic,” or deconstructionism, or whatever else you want to call it) that we, as evangelical Christians, should find troublesome when taken to an extreme, postmodernity is not all bad. (I mean, we’re a bit naive if we want to reject all that postmodernity has brought to our attention in favor of clinging to modernity as if its ideas were pristinely Christian!)

But I digress. Let me share the two excerpts.

None of us interprets anything from an entirely neutral stance. One would have to enjoy the attribute of omniscience to be entirely objective. Insofar as it reminds us that we are finite, and that our findings, at some level, must always be qualified by our limitations, postmodernism has been a salutary advance. It has been especially useful in checking the arrogance of modernist claims. The problem is that in the hands of many interpreters, postmodernism demands a nasty antithesis: either we claim we can know objective truth exhaustively, or we insist that our finitude means we cannot know objective truth and therefore cannot truly “know” reality. Since finite human beings can never know anything omnisciently, only the second alternative is defensible. In that case, all our “knowledge” is a social or a personal construct; the only “reality” we can know is the one we construct.

There is a sense, of course, in which this latter claim is transparently obvious: the only “reality” we can know is the one we construct. But the crucial issue is this: Can this “reality” that we ourselves “know” be tightly aligned with objective reality? In other words, even though we finite human beings can never enjoy omniscient knowledge, can we not legitimately claim to know some objective things truly, even if we do not know them perfectly, exhaustively?

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Redemptive-Historical, Biblical-Theological Hermeneutics (LDBC Recap 2/14/16 Pt. 1)

Kirk E. Miller

Explanation

logo-lake-drive-baptist-churchOn Sunday, January 24th, 2016, I began a Core Seminar on Redemptive History & Biblical Theology at my church, Lake Drive Baptist Church. During the course of this series I’ll be sending out emails recapping lessons and directing recipients to resources for further study.

Rather than just share these recaps with my church family, I’ve decided to share them here on the blog for anyone else who might be interested. I will be posting them occasionally over the next couple of months on a weekly basis or so.

See previous posts:

Recap/review

Introduction

This past week we did two things:

  • First, we finished up our section on foundational matters by laying out some principles of interpretation (hermeneutics) that are particularly relevant for studying and understanding redemptive history and Biblical theology.
  • Second, we began our survey of redemptive history itself.

I’ve decided to break up our recap/review this week into two segments. The first one (this one), will cover the principles of interpretation we discussed. The second one will review our initial embark into redemptive history.

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“It is the the doers of the law who will be justified” (Rom 2:13): G.K. Beale on Justification according to Works

Kirk E. Miller

In A New Testament Biblical Theology: The Unfolding of the Old Testament in the New, G.K. Beale asks, “How can believers be said to be judged by works and yet be justified by faith?” (e.g., Rom 2:13; Js 2:14-26; cf. Rom 3:28)

In the process of answering his question concerning what Beale tactfully calls this “consummate, manifestive stage of justification” (i.e., the justification according to works of which scripture speaks), Beale gives the following helpful illustration to help us understand this “twofold justification.”

A mundane illustration may help to clarify. In the United States, some large discount food stores require people to pay an annual fee to have the privilege of buying food at their store. Once this fee is paid, the member must present a card as evidence of having paid the fee. The card gets the members into the store, but it is not the ultimate reason that the person is granted access. The paid fee is the ultimate reason, the card being the evidence that the fee has been paid. We may refer to the paid fee as the “necessary causal condition” of store entrance and to the evidential card more simply as a “necessary condition.” The card is the external manifestation or proof that the price has been paid, so that both the money paid and the card issued are necessary for admittance, but they do not have the same conditional force for gaining entrance. We may call the paid fee a “first order” or “ultimate” condition and the card a “second order” condition.

He concludes,

Likewise, Christ’s justifying penal death is the price paid “once for all” (Heb. 9:12; cf. 9:26–28), and the good works done within the context of Christian faith become the inevitable evidence of such faith at the final judicial evaluation. Christ’s work is the “necessary causal condition” for justification, and the believer’s works are a “necessary condition” for it. Jonathan Edwards helpfully referred to Christ’s work as “causal justification” and the believer’s obedience at the end of the age as “manifestive justification.” This manifestive evidence not only is part of a judicial process but also becomes evidence that overturns the wrong verdict of the world on believers’ faith and works done in obedience to Christ.

G. K. Beale, A New Testament Biblical Theology: The Unfolding of the Old Testament in the New (Grand Rapids, MI: Baker Academic, 2011), 506–507.

The Danger of Abortion as a Wedge Issue (Carl Trueman)

Kirk E. Miller

The use of abortion as a wedge issue and as a clear dividing line between Republican and Democratic parties has the potential to kill intelligent discussion on a host of other political topics.  After all, if Republican and Democrat are the only two credible electoral options in most places, then, according to many, the Christian way of voting is obvious, and it is pointless to discuss any other policies or issues.

Such an attitude is in my experience very common in Christian circles, and it is problematic for two reasons.  First, it fails to address the difference between Republican rhetoric on abortion and action on the same, which is often dramatic and serves to weaken the rather stark polarities that are often drawn between Republicans and Democrats.  Second, it preempts discussion on a host of other issues – poverty, the environment, foreign policy, etc. – and thereby runs the risk of provoking a reaction among younger evangelicals that relativizes the issue of abortion and thus achieves the opposite of what it intends.

Carl Trueman, Republocrat: Confessions of a Liberal Conservative, xx.

This is one of those cases where we have to make sure we are good and fair readers (I’m afraid we often fail in that respect…)

Notice: Trueman is not saying abortion isn’t horrendous. He’s not saying it isn’t an important political issue. Nor is he saying we shouldn’t oppose it with all of our political fiber. He’s not even necessarily saying here (he may say this elsewhere–I’m not sure; but he’s not saying it here at least) that one shouldn’t or can’t be what’s called “a single-issue voter,” if by that we mean that stances on certain issues necessarily disqualify a candidate from one’s vote (see someone like Denny Burk), not that only one issue should concern our vote (Trueman is obviously opposing that).

What he is saying, however, is that there is a danger (it’s just a danger, not an entailment) in using abortion as a litmus test for candidates. And that danger is shutting down the conversation on other important issues like foreign policy, the environment (think climate change), poverty and economic inequality, criminal justice, the racialized nature of our society, immigration, the refugee crisis, etc.

And, if I’m going to be honest, I’m afraid that’s what’s happened in much white American evangelical engagement in politics (note the recent fiasco criticizing Thabiti Anyabwile; see this Twitter thread for a good example). It would appear that abortion-as-wedge-issue has resulted in us becoming painfully partisan, in a way that results in us merely becoming pawns for a particular political party.

Lunatic, Lord, or Liar (C.S. Lewis)

Kirk E. Miller 1 Comment

The following two quotations, from Lewis’ Mere Christianity, constitute Lewis’ well known lunatic, lord, or liar argument, sometimes called Lewis’ “trilemma” or “mad, bad, or God.”

I am trying here to prevent anyone saying the really foolish thing that people often say about Him: “I’m ready to accept Jesus as a great moral teacher, but I don’t accept His claim to be God.” That is the one thing we must not say. A man who was merely a man and said the sort of things Jesus said would not be a great moral teacher. He would either be a lunatic-on a level with the man who says he is a poached egg-or else he would be the Devil of Hell. You must make your choice. Either this man was, and is, the Son of God: or else a madman or something worse. You can shut Him up for a fool, you can spit at Him and kill Him as a demon; or you can fall at His feet and call Him Lord and God. But let us not come with any patronising nonsense about His being a great human teacher. He has not left that open to us. He did not intend to.

We are faced, then, with a frightening alternative. This man we are talking about either was (and is) just what He said or else a lunatic, or something worse.

C.S. Lewis, Mere Christianity, book 2, chapter 3, paragraph 13; chapter 4, paragraph 1.

In short, Lewis argues the only two alternatives besides accepting that Jesus is God is to view him as either an immoral liar or an insane person who did not realize he was lying. Most non-Christians don’t exactly like those two alternatives to this Jesus figure who often seems to them seems like a pretty solid dude–just not God. But Lewis will have none of this riding the fence garbage. A good moral teacher would not claim to be God without actually being so. To falsely claim such, he must needs be either a lunatic or a liar. Thus, as Lewis argues, this common tact of taking Jesus as non-God, non-lord, great-moral-teacher is off the table.