R
Randy_Carson
Guest
The Protestant notion of Scripture as perspicuous specifically means that the Bible is sufficiently clear in meaning that no ‘official’ interpreter is necessary. Allegedly, persons of average intelligence ought to be able to read the Bible and discern all relevant doctrines necessary for salvation, even to the establishment of order and discipline in the Church.
This perspicuity is nonchalantly extended from the original language autographs to vernacular translations without qualm. Unfortunately, this naively assumes that the process of “translation” is actually possible. It is not. The best you can ever hope for is a paraphrase. The character of such paraphrases varies between the two extremes of crass literalism and idiomatic hyperbole. The claim that such paraphrases can be 100% faithful to the meaning of the original text is absurd. All vernacular paraphrases require interpretation in their composition. None of them is a perfect rendition of the original Biblical text into the vernacular. Such things as colloquial idioms, meter, rhyme, and alliteration can be lost in the process. As such if there is any perspicuity to the text of the Bible, it must reside in the original autographs which were written in dead languages thousands of years ago. It is entirely possible that we have lost the literary knowledge to fully understand these texts in their original ‘sitz im leben’.
The concept of biblical perspicuity is not taught anywhere in the Bible. Instead it is asserted by Protestants in order to deny traditional Christian exegesis and create an alternative method for discerning doctrine. In doing so, they contradict the principle of “sola scriptura” (which also is not found in the Bible). More importantly, they naively assume that among “true Christians” any disagreements about Biblical interpretation will either not occur or will not involve the central issues of the faith. In point of fact, all the major branches of Protestantism do disagree on such central issues and there never has been a Protestant consensus on doctrine. Even the vaunted notion of ‘justification by faith alone’ means different things to different Protestant groups.
Some parts of the Bible are clearer than others. While the average person can understand most biblical texts with the help of a good expositor, there is no uniform perspicuity from one text to another. Even the experts agree that some texts are obscure in their meaning and that different opinions held about them may be equally probable. One also needs to take into account the larger context of the Biblical material including the implications on interpretation of the total contents of the Canon. A Bible which contains both the letter to the Romans and the epistle of St. James has a very different overall meaning than one which contained only one or the other.
Furthermore, when the Bible clearly teaches something opposed to the reader’s own Protestant presuppositions (e.g., Matt 16:16-18, James 2:24, or John 6:53) instead of submitting to the obvious literal meaning of the text, the Protestant tries to explain away that meaning in favor of one which conforms to his confessional prejudices.
Exegetical disputes arise which can not be settled methodologically and new denominations are formed as a result. In short, the principle of perspicuity doesn’t work in practice.
The alleged perspicuity in the Bible is a superstition and nothing more. If the Bible were as perspicuous as a bus schedule, everyone would be “on board” with the correct interpretation. Instead, we have numerous interpretations that contradict each other. This can only be seen as a methodological failure falsifying the alleged principle in question.
Furthermore, some Protestants claim that the Scriptures are at least as perspicuous as the Catholic Magisterium. I am stupefied that anyone would be foolish enough to make such a ridiculous claim. Whether or not you accept Magisterial authority, it should be obvious to anyone of average intelligence that a contemporary teacher who can respond to modern questions in modern languages is a superior source of information than a book written several thousand years ago in dead languages using foreign cultural idioms, while the interpreting of such a book requires some authoritative expertise such as that of a translator or an exegete. As such there is still a layer of interpretive authority between the text and the average reader even in the Protestant system. You cannot escape from it. Why settle for a fallible exegete when you can have an infallible teacher?
By Dr. Art Sippo
This perspicuity is nonchalantly extended from the original language autographs to vernacular translations without qualm. Unfortunately, this naively assumes that the process of “translation” is actually possible. It is not. The best you can ever hope for is a paraphrase. The character of such paraphrases varies between the two extremes of crass literalism and idiomatic hyperbole. The claim that such paraphrases can be 100% faithful to the meaning of the original text is absurd. All vernacular paraphrases require interpretation in their composition. None of them is a perfect rendition of the original Biblical text into the vernacular. Such things as colloquial idioms, meter, rhyme, and alliteration can be lost in the process. As such if there is any perspicuity to the text of the Bible, it must reside in the original autographs which were written in dead languages thousands of years ago. It is entirely possible that we have lost the literary knowledge to fully understand these texts in their original ‘sitz im leben’.
The concept of biblical perspicuity is not taught anywhere in the Bible. Instead it is asserted by Protestants in order to deny traditional Christian exegesis and create an alternative method for discerning doctrine. In doing so, they contradict the principle of “sola scriptura” (which also is not found in the Bible). More importantly, they naively assume that among “true Christians” any disagreements about Biblical interpretation will either not occur or will not involve the central issues of the faith. In point of fact, all the major branches of Protestantism do disagree on such central issues and there never has been a Protestant consensus on doctrine. Even the vaunted notion of ‘justification by faith alone’ means different things to different Protestant groups.
Some parts of the Bible are clearer than others. While the average person can understand most biblical texts with the help of a good expositor, there is no uniform perspicuity from one text to another. Even the experts agree that some texts are obscure in their meaning and that different opinions held about them may be equally probable. One also needs to take into account the larger context of the Biblical material including the implications on interpretation of the total contents of the Canon. A Bible which contains both the letter to the Romans and the epistle of St. James has a very different overall meaning than one which contained only one or the other.
Furthermore, when the Bible clearly teaches something opposed to the reader’s own Protestant presuppositions (e.g., Matt 16:16-18, James 2:24, or John 6:53) instead of submitting to the obvious literal meaning of the text, the Protestant tries to explain away that meaning in favor of one which conforms to his confessional prejudices.
Exegetical disputes arise which can not be settled methodologically and new denominations are formed as a result. In short, the principle of perspicuity doesn’t work in practice.
The alleged perspicuity in the Bible is a superstition and nothing more. If the Bible were as perspicuous as a bus schedule, everyone would be “on board” with the correct interpretation. Instead, we have numerous interpretations that contradict each other. This can only be seen as a methodological failure falsifying the alleged principle in question.
Furthermore, some Protestants claim that the Scriptures are at least as perspicuous as the Catholic Magisterium. I am stupefied that anyone would be foolish enough to make such a ridiculous claim. Whether or not you accept Magisterial authority, it should be obvious to anyone of average intelligence that a contemporary teacher who can respond to modern questions in modern languages is a superior source of information than a book written several thousand years ago in dead languages using foreign cultural idioms, while the interpreting of such a book requires some authoritative expertise such as that of a translator or an exegete. As such there is still a layer of interpretive authority between the text and the average reader even in the Protestant system. You cannot escape from it. Why settle for a fallible exegete when you can have an infallible teacher?
By Dr. Art Sippo
