“Pursuing freedom from Scripture's clear teachings, by arguing for their ambiguity, results only in tyranny” – Part Two

Erasmus, the Ambiguity of Scripture, and the Tyranny of Man’s opinions

“Though it has been overshadowed by the engagement on the will, an additional major issue in Luther’s Bondage of the Will [a.k.a. De Servo Arbitrio or simply ‘DSA’] concerns the clarity of Scripture. Seeking to protect the integrity and power of human choice, in his Diatribe Erasmus had claimed that the Bible is ambiguous on key matters. In reply, Luther asserted its clarity.”

That quote is the opening sentence of a paper delivered by Rev. Dr. James Nestingen (NALC) at the Lutheran Free Conference that was held on the MLC campus in November 2011 (bold and underline emphasis is mine). The title of his paper was “Biblical Clarity and Ambiguity in The Bondage of the Will”. I was personally present for the reading of this paper at the Conference, along with reactions delivered by Rev. Scott Murray (Vice President, LCMS) and Professor Joel Fredrich (WELS, Martin Luther College), which were essentially appreciative of Dr. Nestingen’s paper.

And I must commend the Conference for their choice of Dr. Nestingen to cover this topic. If anyone cares to do an internet search for information about Nestingen, he will find that Nestingen is Professor Emeritus, Luther Seminary in St. Paul, MN, and has apparently been conservative enough throughout his career to have been considered, at least by some, a thorn in the side of the ELCA. Furthermore, he is a recognized Luther scholar. But what makes his insight so interesting, and useful, is the liberal context in which he spent his career and to which he applied his studies. The ELCA had opened itself up to the perspectives and sensibilities of secular and unregenerate culture, while, again under the guise of offering a Gospel “relevant for Christian living,” its message and ministry devolved to a “Third Use” form of moralistic social activism, consistent with those Worldly perspectives and sensibilities. In other words, the issues raging in the ELCA, to which Dr. Nestingen applied his studies, and to which he applies his analysis of Luther’s Bondage of the Will relative to the perspicuity of Scripture, are very much the same issues raging in greater society today, which impact us everywhere outside the walls of our church buildings, and threaten to enter our Church through our exposure to these issues everywhere else. Professor Fredrich briefly touches on this observation in his reaction paper, confirming for the reader that the observations and applications Dr. Nestingen makes are probably out of reach for WELS scholars – they would never think to make them on their own, simply due to lack of exposure to the issues. Thus, Dr. Nestingen's insight on this topic was much appreciated by me and others.

After covering two of Luther’s preliminary arguments in Bondage of the Will, Dr. Nestingen begins with the issue of ambiguity vs. perspicuity:

“[T]he assumptions of the arguments [Erasmus] employed against the reformer have become so dominant in public culture that they seem inescapable. So searching out the implications of Luther’s replies concerning the clarity of Scripture has to proceed at two levels, one in relation to the historical conflict itself, the other in relation to the victorious heritage of humanism in these times.

“To begin with, Luther’s preliminary arguments expose the assumptions that drive Erasmus’ argument throughout. From the start, Erasmus assumes sufficient detachment from Scripture and the authoritative traditions of the church to choose skepticism as an available alternative. He is the agent, surveying the range of claims before him, discerning their relative value. Having taken such a position for granted, Erasmus’ goal is to preserve his options. Just as he picks and chooses among truths presented to him, in his own mind he will preserve his alternatives before God.

“Thus Erasmus, in illusion if not in reality, remains sovereign... he stands aloof as arbiter of Scripture, the faith of the church and what falls most appropriately on the ears of the peasants. The major premise of the argument controls the conclusion — from the beginning, Erasmus is the acting subject.

“Further, the preliminary argument demonstrates Erasmus’ appraisal of authority. It is essentially negative, setting limits without offering anything significantly positive — the authority of law as opposed to gospel. So it limits and confines without any acknowledged promise or benefit...

“Thus, finally, Erasmus’ freedom is negative. It is an innate quality of the will that asserts itself over and against the authorities that encompass and seek to limit it, not a positive gift or bestowal granted in a life-determining relationship with its saving Lord. Consequently, the self has no alternative but to seize on ambiguity — the absence of any compelling significance or meaning — as though it were liberty. No wonder Luther later described Erasmus as ‘Christless, Spiritless and cold as ice’” (pp. 5-6, bold emphasis mine).

From here, Nestingen goes on to analyze Luther’s argument for the perspicuity of Scripture, identifying in them two levels of clarity: the first “external,” and the second “internal.” In the former case, Luther was essentially referring to the domain of man’s reason set to the tasks of textual criticism and biblical hermeneutics. In the latter, he refers to the Holy Spirit active in the believer, who works to illuminate the Scriptures meaning. Quoting Luther, Nestingen writes,

“Because of the power of sin, ‘All men have their hearts darkened, so that even when they can discuss and quote all that is in Scripture, they do not understand or really know any of it.’ Thus, ‘the Spirit is needed for the understanding of all Scripture and every part of Scripture’” (pg. 5).

and three pages later helpfully amplifies this this, as follows:

“[T]he internal perspicuity of Scripture is not a matter of reason but of faith that has been worked by the Holy Spirit... This begins with a death... and it continues in a daily dying and rising. This death eliminates the self as actor... The gospel is Christ’s work now carried through by his Spirit... bringing the faithful into the rhythm of dying and rising with him...

“Thus internal clarification of the gospel involves continued proclamation and administration... As the gospel creates faith, faith returns to the word daily and afresh. Ambiguity in this context becomes intolerable, threatening to undermine what has become life-defining. But clarification in faith is not merely remedial — it is a joyous renewal in the promises and gifts of the gospel. ‘This is what makes our theology certain,’ as Luther wrote in the Galatians Commentary, ‘it takes us outside of ourselves and brings us to rest in Christ Jesus’” (pg. 9, bold emphasis mine).

It is worth pointing out, as does Professor Fredrich in his reaction paper, that it is proper to consider “external” and “internal” perspicuity together, not separately. One could imagine that separating the two, and admitting only the latter, would result in general preference for and overruling emphasis on the “personal meaning” that individuals may take from their own unique reading of the Scriptures. Such would amount to a self-referential “anthropocentric” Gospel, where meaning is determined from man’s fallen sensibilities; and as unique readings vary, the clear message of the Gospel would swiftly descend into chaos. In any human organization, like the ELCA for instance, unity of teaching could only be asserted, and order could only be maintained around that teaching, not by appeal to and mutual agreement on the objective meaning of Scripture, but democratically: “We shall officially adopt those opinions regarding the teaching of Scripture which are shared by the majority of individuals, determined by vote. Those having opposing opinions are to be silent.”

And such church organizations, insofar as they open themselves up to worldly sensibilities, share fully with the world in these Erasmian conclusions:

“Contemporary uses of Erasmus’ argument for ambiguity follow a similar pattern... Only the measurable, quantifiable and repeatable can be considered factual or truthful; everything else, unable to meet such standards, falls into the category of values or personal opinion. In effect, what Charles Saunders Pierce called ‘the argument from personal tenacity’ has become normative [i.e. ‘it’s true because I say so,’ added Dr. Nestingen as he read this paper]. There literally is no law regarding personal and inter-personal relations — there are just choices.

“In this context, by such standards, the claim that biblical law is ambiguous goes without saying. Ancient, it is by definition out of touch with contemporary realities. Patriarchal, it was conditioned by an age in which male-female relationships — as currently defined by the privileged — were by definition inappropriate. With these and similar objections, the assertion of ambiguity requires no further explanation or defense. It is an assumption that needs no further investigation and brooks no challenge” (pg. 9, bold and underline emphasis mine).

“For this reason, in the mainline churches where the argument for ambiguity has been deployed, the next step has not been the one a reasonable person... would suggest. Because by contemporary definition the self cannot move beyond the self-assertion evident in the use of any form of standard, there’s no point in further examination of the arguments. Bondage to the self represents a given, an a priori which makes further examination pointless. In fact, Erasmus for all of his vaunted cultural significance, has become something of an antique. Only theologians talk about free will anymore. In a cynical reversal, while the heirs of Erasmus reduce the gospel to an appeal — speaking of faith as one alternative among many — the culture describes what the law has condemned as predestined and so beyond any choice...

“For the church, appeals to the supposed ambiguity of the biblical text bring an end to any further conversation. Students of Scripture can cite any number of passages that, at the level of external clarity, require further study. Such investigation is the logical next step, and entirely reasonable. But when a church body invokes ambiguity to legislate a particular reading of passages, the possibility of any other reading has been officially eliminated. The authority of the Scripture has been taken over by its interpreters to enforce their commitments. Imperially silenced, those who disagree, who hold to the biblical priority set by the Formula of Concord, have been effectively excluded, literally unchurched” (pp. 9-10, bold and underline emphasis mine).

Dear reader, we ought to thank Dr. Nestingen for alerting us to the tactic of asserting Scripture’s ambiguity as opportunity for supposed liberty, and for locating the modern source of this tactic in Erasmus – who opposed Luther in this regard. It seems, in our post-modern age, when ALL truth and meaning are self-referentially experiential, that the “discovery” of ambiguity in the Scriptures, having become great sport, has accelerated to an alarming rate!

But it is time for you to comment.

• Have we opened ourselves to the unregenerate and anti-biblical thought patterns of post-modernism? Have we at least been less than watchful for the osmosis of such ideologies from the World?
• Do we see in our own midst the tactic of appealing to Scripture’s “ambiguity” on display?
• Does the acceptance of various anthropocentric aberrations of the Church Growth Movement, including Sectarian Worship, depend, at least in part, on an appeal to “ambiguity” and the license that it grants?
• Does the advocacy of certain translations of the Bible appeal to “ambiguity” – “ambiguity” that we really never knew was there before, but which seem to have been revealed to us in the peculiarities of the post-modern perspectives rampant in popular culture?

If you recognize this tactic at work, where do you identify it? What are its implications for the pure teaching of God’s Word, and for Unity under that teaching?

“Pursuing freedom from Scripture's clear teachings, by arguing for their ambiguity, results only in tyranny” – Part One

Without the “Theology of the Cross” man misuses the best in the worst manner

The title of this two-part series of posts was taken from the closing sentence of my previous post, When the Third Use of the Law pre-dominates.... Through the eyes of those who were there, we caught a glimpse in that post of the decay in clarity of Scripture’s teaching that occurred in the ELCA. As the Second Use of the Law was replaced over time with its Third Use, the perspicuity, or clarity, of Scripture and certainty of its teaching was rendered more and more ambiguous, requiring man to supply clarity in matters which Scripture had previously been thought to clearly teach. Under the guise of offering a Gospel “relevant for Christian living,” Third Use preaching offered little more than a degenerate form of moralistic social activism, well-suited for the itching ears of those no longer disposed to endure sound doctrine, who’ve instead turned to chasing their own lusts (2 Ti. 4:1-5). This decay lead the ELCA officially into the antinomianism it now revels in, having, at its Church Wide Assembly in 2009, officially placed “sin into the ‘not-sin’ category, by majority vote,” declaring that monogamous homosexual relationships “[are] God-pleasing... against the clear Word of Scripture” (quoting from my previous post). The tyranny in this is that in the ELCA, man has become the arbiter of Scripture’s clarity and meaning, rather than Scripture itself, and from the verdict of man’s declaration there is no appeal – that is, there is no recognized higher authority to which one may appeal (Scripture having been declared ambiguous, or unclear because it has been made difficult to understand), making man and his declarations the final authority.

This is what two average individuals, one layman and one clergyman, present in the ELCA throughout its decline, seemed to independently observe. But we don’t really need direct observation of these events to predict that such would happen. Do we?

Scripture clearly teaches that Satan is full of pride and covets God’s glory for himself (Is. 14:13-14; Ma. 4:8-10), and that at the instigation of Satan man Fell into this same sin, in this way separating himself from God: the sin of pride and of desiring equality with God (Ge. 3:1-19). This sinfulness remains part of our fallen human nature. We want to be like God. We desire His wisdom and authority for ourselves. We long for ourselves a share in God’s glory. Being entirely unlike God, however – that is, being unrighteous, unjust, unloving, lacking knowledge, having no real power over Creation, and certainly not being everywhere present all the time – we abuse the Revelations of Himself to us, in our efforts to rob Him of the glory that belongs only to Himself:

In the case of General Revelation – or God’s revelation of Himself to all of mankind within His Created Order – contemporary man studies it not just for the purpose of understanding it and of being good stewards before God in its use, but studies according to his own definitions, contrived by him to specifically rule out any authority above man, for the purpose of bringing Creation under his immediate control. Being like God means that man can predict, guide and control Creation on his own terms, or at least convince himself that he can; and if such control results in death or suffering, this is not significantly different than the results man observes in God’s own control of Creation.

In the case of Special Revelation – or God’s direct revelation of Himself to all of mankind in the clear Word of Scripture, which He has preserved for us, just as He promised, down through the ages to today – man studies it not just for the purpose of understanding it and of being good stewards of its teaching, but for the purpose of discovering where it is wrong, inconsistent or incomplete, and in need of man’s correcting and clarifying efforts. Being like God means that, just as we suffer various shortcomings, we recognize the same in Him – His “failure” to perfectly preserve His Word, for instance, or His “failure” to inspire His Word in perfectly clear terms suitable for direct translation into any language. As His equal, man takes great honor in critiquing God’s Word – in the same manner we would the written work of any of our colleagues – helpfully pointing out His errors, contradictions and lack of clarity, in the hopes that our efforts will assist God in producing a more excellent and well-received message.

Man naturally pursues a “Theology of Glory.” The consequences of this with respect to God’s many gifts to mankind are clearly stated by Dr. Martin Luther, who stated in his 24^th Thesis at the Heidelberg Disputation, “without the 'Theology of the Cross' man misuses the best in the worst manner.” It should come as no surprise, therefore, that where man permits himself the freedom and authority to arbitrate God’s Revelation, he does so with the force and finality of God Himself. It should also come as no surprise that man, according to his nature, does work toward this very end – whether deliberately or quite unconsciously – and that he revels in the glory assigned to him for his efforts.

It seems most charitable to assume that no confessing Christian would deliberately seek a place of judgment over God’s Word, and to leave it at that – remaining oblivious to its likelihood and limiting ourselves to the messy job of first recognizing when it happens and then reacting to it long after the fact. This is, however, a dangerously pollyanna attitude, since the tactic of arguing for the abstruseness of Scripture, in order to deliberately accumulate authority and glory to man, is not unknown in the history of the Church. In fact, this is exactly how, and why, Erasmus, in his Freedom of the Will (a.k.a. De libero arbitrio diatribe sive collatio, or Diatribe), and later supporting works, argued for the ambiguity of the Scriptures – to maintain the freedom and authority of man over against Scripture. And Erasmus’ arguments have remained active as a dominant force in Western Society and, through it, the Christian Church – more so today, perhaps, than ever before.

To be continued in Part Two, tomorrow... (“Pursuing freedom from Scripture's clear teachings, by arguing for their ambiguity, results only in tyranny” – Part Two)