A response to Josh S., in which I strive to be more civil than he
Josh S. over at Here We Stand has effectively closed our discussion over there of his gospel reductionism with a rather obnoxious post which doesn't actually respond to Luther's rules of biblical hermeneutics (which he apparently ascribes to me, despite my having pointed out the contrary) in rejecting them. He just sort of talks past them, not so much missing the point as not really aiming at it, it seems. The irony is that the specific rules I cited weren't unique to Luther. With the exception of Luther's rejection of philosophical reason as a filter for biblical interpretation, Calvin and other non-Lutheran Reformers embraced them, too!
I didn't even give an exhaustive list. No doubt if I had cited Luther's (and Calvin's) conviction that every passage has only one, literal sense, Josh would have argued for the legitimacy of allegory. I simply cannot escape the impression that it wasn't the rules Josh was rejecting, but simply any possibility that the Bible might, in its essential doctrinal teachings, be as clear as Luther himself maintained, and Lutheran orthodoxy has always insisted. How else to explain his utter failure to actually engage my arguments (or rather, Luther's)?
Josh is full of scorn for the distinction between the broader and narrower senses of the word "Gospel" in Scripture and in the Confessions, and for Luther's belief that reading biblical texts in the manner natural to their literary genre is necessary to their proper interpretation. I am rather surprised by the latter, since it's a fundamental principle of interpretation for just about any sort of text in any discipline which deals with them, but I don't think it's the premise he's objecting to; I think it's the notion that steps can be taken to establish objective meaning for biblical texts at all. His position seems to be that this is not- and cannot, by any means, be allowed to be- the case.
No one, of course, ever suggested that one reads all poems, all narratives, or all letters the same way, but rather only that a poem or ecstatic prophesy ought not to be read as a narrative, or wisdom literature as a letter, etc.- as pre-millennialists and others are often wont to do. Nor, while suggesting that the descriptive need not be confused with the prescriptive, did I ever deny that the Law can take many literary forms in the Bible. The reason for Josh's ad hominem tone, as well as his apparent need to "go nuclear" and invoke his status as blog moderator rather than debating with me in the comment section, frankly escape me. But as he points out, it's his blog, and he's obviously free to run it as he wishes.
Regrettably, he has apparently chosen not to follow the link in my post in which I referred him to the distinction between fundamental and non-fundamental doctrines, and between primary and secondary articles of faith, on one hand, and matters which are not articles of faith, on the other, in the Christian Cyclopedia. Or at least he seems not to have followed that link; he charges me (and confessional Lutheranism as a whole) with being unable to distinguish among them.
Josh doesn't believe that anything can be church- divisive which does not directly impact salvation. He seems not only committed to the Modernist hermeneutical position of the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America, and unwilling to even listen to arguments in support of the traditionally Lutheran position. The ELCA is an excellent laboratory experiment for judging the viability of Josh's stated hermeneutical posture, and a representative kettle of the antinomian soup in which that posture puts anyone who adopts it.
Irony of ironies, Josh even goes so far as in one place to point to the Formula of Concord, of all documents, in support of his position that nothing can be church-divisive which does not directly impact salvation! If he really believes that the Lutheran Confessors took any position other than mine (and, traditionally, the Missouri Synod's) regarding those who taught differently even on matters not directly relating to salvation, he badly needs not only to re-read the Formula, but to do a great deal of reading regarding Lutheran fellowship practices during that era!
Suffice it to say that his mind appears closed, and he is willing to listen neither to Luther, to Lutheran history, nor to the Lutheran tradition. Dialog between us is impossible. Which is a shame, but there it is.
I didn't even give an exhaustive list. No doubt if I had cited Luther's (and Calvin's) conviction that every passage has only one, literal sense, Josh would have argued for the legitimacy of allegory. I simply cannot escape the impression that it wasn't the rules Josh was rejecting, but simply any possibility that the Bible might, in its essential doctrinal teachings, be as clear as Luther himself maintained, and Lutheran orthodoxy has always insisted. How else to explain his utter failure to actually engage my arguments (or rather, Luther's)?
Josh is full of scorn for the distinction between the broader and narrower senses of the word "Gospel" in Scripture and in the Confessions, and for Luther's belief that reading biblical texts in the manner natural to their literary genre is necessary to their proper interpretation. I am rather surprised by the latter, since it's a fundamental principle of interpretation for just about any sort of text in any discipline which deals with them, but I don't think it's the premise he's objecting to; I think it's the notion that steps can be taken to establish objective meaning for biblical texts at all. His position seems to be that this is not- and cannot, by any means, be allowed to be- the case.
No one, of course, ever suggested that one reads all poems, all narratives, or all letters the same way, but rather only that a poem or ecstatic prophesy ought not to be read as a narrative, or wisdom literature as a letter, etc.- as pre-millennialists and others are often wont to do. Nor, while suggesting that the descriptive need not be confused with the prescriptive, did I ever deny that the Law can take many literary forms in the Bible. The reason for Josh's ad hominem tone, as well as his apparent need to "go nuclear" and invoke his status as blog moderator rather than debating with me in the comment section, frankly escape me. But as he points out, it's his blog, and he's obviously free to run it as he wishes.
Regrettably, he has apparently chosen not to follow the link in my post in which I referred him to the distinction between fundamental and non-fundamental doctrines, and between primary and secondary articles of faith, on one hand, and matters which are not articles of faith, on the other, in the Christian Cyclopedia. Or at least he seems not to have followed that link; he charges me (and confessional Lutheranism as a whole) with being unable to distinguish among them.
Josh doesn't believe that anything can be church- divisive which does not directly impact salvation. He seems not only committed to the Modernist hermeneutical position of the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America, and unwilling to even listen to arguments in support of the traditionally Lutheran position. The ELCA is an excellent laboratory experiment for judging the viability of Josh's stated hermeneutical posture, and a representative kettle of the antinomian soup in which that posture puts anyone who adopts it.
Irony of ironies, Josh even goes so far as in one place to point to the Formula of Concord, of all documents, in support of his position that nothing can be church-divisive which does not directly impact salvation! If he really believes that the Lutheran Confessors took any position other than mine (and, traditionally, the Missouri Synod's) regarding those who taught differently even on matters not directly relating to salvation, he badly needs not only to re-read the Formula, but to do a great deal of reading regarding Lutheran fellowship practices during that era!
Suffice it to say that his mind appears closed, and he is willing to listen neither to Luther, to Lutheran history, nor to the Lutheran tradition. Dialog between us is impossible. Which is a shame, but there it is.
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