Fernando Canale
In what ways does the understanding of R-I just outlined impact our interpretation of Scripture and the task of doing theology? It influences these tasks through the hermeneutical principles that derive from it. If so, what are the major derivative principles?
According to the Biblical Model of R-I, God revealed Himself in many ways by condescending to human patterns of thought and writing. The entire Bible is revealed. The words of the prophets have become the words of God. When doing exegesis and theology, then, we should not distinguish between divine thought and human words or between portions of Scripture.
We have access to divine teachings and revelation only through words. Consequently, the entire text of Scripture, from Genesis to Revelation, becomes the most specific, sufficient, and only reliable source of data and hermeneutical principles that we have for knowing God and His will for us.
According to the Biblical Model of R-I, God reveals Himself within the historical process (Exod 25:8; John 1:1-14). In other words, revelation is historical, primarily because God executes His plan of redemption historically from within the spatio-temporal flow of human history. However, this divine condescension does not mean that biblical teachings are the outgrowth of cultural trends. It simply means that God’s transcendent truths appear not only within the limitations of humanity, in general, but also within the limitations of the historical times in which each prophet lived and wrote. Guided by the Holy Spirit, prophets used culture critically and selectively.
Divine revelation is not historically conditioned. Cultural aspects in sacred history are dated, but they form part of divine actions and revelation. The Adventist interpreter will therefore assume that the biblical text, in toto, is the result of divine revelation in history, received, understood, and composed by prophets and apostles. Awareness of the historical situations in which divine revelation and the prophetic writing took place becomes a necessary step to a proper understanding of divinely revealed thoughts and teachings.
Because the Biblical Model of R-I flows from within the flux of human history, it understands the purpose of the Scriptures to reveal truths not only about God but also about everything God has created in nature and done in history. Biblical truths, then, cannot be confined to God or salvation, as other models seem to suggest, but embrace the astonishing diversity of interconnected truths about God and His works. Exegetes and theologians must take special care not to quench this richness by unilaterally deciding that only certain salvific truths are relevant, discarding the rest. To do so sets theologians on a reductive and distortive pursuit of the “essence” of the Christian message, discarding the great majority of biblical teachings as culturally conditioned and, therefore, disposable.
According to the Biblical Model of R-I, divine revelation is limited by all the characteristics of our human modes of knowing and of writing. Interpreters should always bear in mind that not even biblical writers can present completely a single truth in human language (c.f. John 21:25).34 Even human truths are always greater and fuller than what our language can express. Consequently, interpreters dealing with divine mysteries will beware of the hermeneutical error of assuming that the interpretation of a passage stands for the whole truth on that subject.
Moreover, revealed knowledge is limited by the imperfection of human syntax. The interpreter is forced to make choices based on assumptions; hence the great importance of a clear understanding of the hermeneutical presuppositions and of the Biblical Model of R-I involved in the interpretation of Scripture.
The Biblical Model of R-I assures us that divine revelation is reliably communicated in the words of Scripture. Therefore, in Scripture we do not find the understanding or philosophy of its human authors, but of God. R-I is the process used by the Holy Spirit to communicate God’s views on nature, history, our human plight, and His dynamic, salvific involvement in them.
Scripture reveals God’s views and operations in nature and history. Moreover, there is no dichotomy between history and salvation, because salvation takes place as a historical process in which God is personally involved. Scripture gives us the broad picture necessary for our life in this world and in the world to come. In this broad and all-inclusive sense, Scripture does not err and is the ultimate reliable source of divine knowledge available this side of eternity.
According to the Biblical Model, R-I takes place within the historical-temporal continuum. Thus the Scriptures include many indispensable historical and natural data that belong essentially to God’s revelations and actions. Biblical revelation, however, does not seek to provide us with an exhaustive, accurate account of historical and scientific data, but rather with a reliable synthesis of God’s multifarious wisdom, will, and activities within the spatio-temporal realm of creation. Facts in Scripture always are incorporated as required by God’s all-inclusive salvific activities within the flow of human history.
The interpreter, therefore, should read Scripture not as science but as a philosophy of history. He or she should search for the meaning of biblical revelation at the all-inclusive theological level without expecting to find the kind of accuracy regarding historical and natural facts that one anticipates in scientific studies. Lack of precision in factual details should be considered as evidence of the full incarnation of divine thinking from within the everyday flow of human history.
The Biblical Model of R-I grounds the authority of Scripture in God. Authority means that Scripture is the reliable source of information about God, His actions, His teachings, and His salvific will for us. Since in Scripture God explicitly reveals His thoughts and His actions about everything, Scripture is to judge every thought and to be judged by nobody (1 Cor 2:15; 2 Cor 10:5).
Certain consequences follow from Scripture’s authority. In exegetical and theological studies, for instance, the interpreter never will attempt to understand Scripture from hermeneutical presuppositions based on human sciences and philosophies. Scripture interprets itself. One may apply a hermeneutic of suspicion to scientific and philosophical studies but never to Scripture.
Finally, the authority of Scripture and its inspiration is confirmed by the truthfulness of its teachings (John 17:17). This confirmation, however, depends on accepting the Biblical Model of R-I. Otherwise, interpreters applying the hermeneutic of suspicion to Scripture never will understand its truths, and, therefore, never will be capable of verifying them.
During the past fifty years a large segment of Adventist scholars has adopted some version of thought inspiration. Others have felt satisfied by working within a verbal view of inspiration. Some theologians have ventured into the land of modernistic encounter revelation. Behind these positions, we find very little serious theological and philosophical reflection. In general, Adventists have “solved” the issue of revelation practically; that is, they simply adopted a ready-to-use interpretation of R-I in order to preempt interpretive and practical problems.
As a result, by the beginning of the twenty-first century thought inspiration seems to hold the loyalties of a broad spectrum of Adventist theologians. Their argument against verbal inspiration and in favor of thought inspiration rests on a few selected statements by Ellen G. White on R-I. Theologians have used the wedge between thought and word, which is characteristic of thought inspiration, for diverse purposes. They range from explanations of literary and historical inconsistencies to an accommodation to scientific and to philosophical theories, such as the historical-critical method and evolution. While the former does not affect the Seventh-day Adventist understanding of Scripture within the framework of the Great Controversy motif, an accommodation to scientific and philosophical theories implies its abandonment and replacement.
One thing is clear. Adventists are not united in their understanding of the fundamental issue of R-I. Moreover, the three views circulating among them have been conceived and formulated by Christian philosophers and theologians who worked from hermeneutical principles derived from human philosophy. These principles are not only extra-biblical in origin but contrary to biblical thinking in content. Moreover, none of the three options satisfactorily integrates all the evidence; hence, the need for a new model of understanding comes clearly into view.
Some Adventists have searched for a better way of understanding R-I by attentively listening to Scripture (teachings and phenomena) and Ellen G. White. Building on their work, we have suggested in this chapter a new model of understanding R-I. It is a Biblical Model, because it builds on biblical foundational hermeneutical presuppositions and carefully listens to the entire range of biblical evidence (doctrine and phenomena). We need to continue searching for a better and deeper understanding of the Biblical Model of R-I. In so doing we must work from the biblical understanding of the foundational hermeneutical presuppositions involved in our interpretation of R-I. Only on such a basis can we overcome the deficiencies of verbal inspiration, thought inspiration, and encounter revelation.
We must account for, and integrate, in detail all the evidence we find in the teachings and phenomena of Scripture relating to R-I. In this way, we will further understand how God revealed knowledge and information to us in a reliable written account, a love letter intended for our salvation. We should continue to surrender all theological authority to God’s written revelation in the entire text of Scripture, in spite of minor inconsistencies in historical detail. From such a strong and rich source of revelatory data, Adventist theologians will be able to probe further into the astonishing richness of divine revelation, reaching for its inner historical logic, centered in God’s continuous involvement in the Great Controversy. They also will be able to explain their views vis-à-vis any and all schools of theologies that built on the quicksand of human philosophies and scientific convictions.
Biblical quotations are the Author’s own translation.
1 The words Revelation-Inspiration are hyphenated to indicate they are inseparable aspects of the same process. To save space I will use the abbreviation “R-I.”
2 Alberto Timm, “A History of Seventh-day Adventist Views on Biblical and Prophetic Inspiration (1844–2000),” Journal of the Adventist Theological Society 10, (1999): 542 (emphasis author’s).
3 Augustine Confessions, 12.15.18.
4 Raoul Dederen, “The Revelation-Inspiration Phenomenon According to the Bible Writers,” in Frank Holbrook and Leo Van Dolson, eds., Issues in Revelation and Inspiration, Adventist Theological Society Occasional papers, vol. 1 (Berrien Springs, MI; Adventist Theological Society Publications, 1992), p. 11.
5 Edward Heppenstall, “Doctrine of Revelation and Inspiration (part 1),” Ministry, July 1970, p. 16.
6 Timm, pp. 487-509.
7 Carlyle B. Haynes, God’s Book (Nashville, TN: Southern Publishing Association, 1935).
8 Ibid., p. 144 (emphasis supplied).
9 Ibid., p. 136 (emphasis author’s).
10 Samuel Koranteng-Pipim offers a recent explicit example of this trend; see his Receiving the Word: How New Approaches to the Bible Impact our Biblical Faith and Lifestyle (Berrien Springs, MI: Berean Books, 1996). As with Alden Thompson, who will be discussed later, Pipim does not explicitly deal with the doctrine of Revelation-Inspiration but assumes the evangelical verbal theory, as many Adventists have done in the past (ibid. 51). As with Haynes, Pipim’s approach is apologetic against the inroads of Modernism and the Historical Critical method of exegesis in Adventist theology. Pipim distances himself from the evangelical verbal theory of inspiration when he emphasizes the “trustworthiness” of Scripture rather than its “inerrancy” (pp. 54-55). Yet, he comes near when explaining that while “no distortions came from the hand of the original Bible writers, some alterations and minor distortions have crept into the Word during the process of transmission and translation” (p. 227).
11 “General Conference Proceedings,” Review and Herald, November 27, 1883, pp. 741-742.
12 Edward Heppenstall, part 1, p. 16.
13 Ibid.
14 Ibid.
15 Idem, “Doctrine of Revelation and Inspiration (conclusion),” Ministry, August 1970, p. 29.
16 Alden Thompson, Inspiration: Hard Questions, Honest Answers (Hagerstown, MD: Review and Herald, 1991).
17 Holbrook and Van Dolson, eds. Issues in Revelation and Inspiration.
18 Thompson, p. 47.
19 Ibid., p. 53.
20 Ibid.
21 Ibid, p. 48 (emphasis author’s).
22 Raoul Dederen, “On Inspiration and Biblical Authority,” in Issues in Revelation and Inspiration, p. 101.
23 Gerard P. Damsteegt, “The Inspiration of Scripture in the Writings of Ellen G. White,” Journal of the Adventist Theological Society 5, no. 1 (1994): 162.
24 Hans-Georg Gadamer, Truth and Method, 2d rev. ed., trans. Joel Weinsheimer and Donald G. Marshall (New York: Continuum, 1989), p. 417.
25 Herold Weiss, “Revelation and the Bible: Beyond Verbal Inspiration,” Spectrum 7, no. 3 (1975): 52.
26 Raoul Dederen, “Toward a Seventh-day Adventist Theology of Revelation-Inspiration,” in North American Bible Conference (North American Division: unpublished paper, 1974), 10.
27 This switch at the scientific-philosophical level of hermeneutics seems to undergird Fritz Guy’s methodological proposal for Adventist theology in his Thinking Theologically: Adventist Christianity and the Interpretation of Faith (Berrien Springs, MI: Andrews University Press, 1999).
28 Dederen, “Toward a Seventh-day Adventist Theology of Revelation-Inspiration,” p. 16.
29 Ibid., p. 13.
30 Ibid., p. 10.
31 Idem, “On Inspiration and Biblical Authority,” pp. 101 and 97.
32 Idem, “Toward a Seventh-day Adventist Theology of Revelation-Inspiration,” p. 6.
33 “The Lord gave His Word in just the way He wanted it to come. He gave it through different writers, each having his own individuality, though going over the same history” (PM 2).
34 Ellen G. White explains, “It is impossible for any human mind to exhaust even one truth or promise of the Bible” (Ed 171).
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