8 - Devotional, Liberal and Neo-Orthodox
December 10, 2004 | Comments: 3
SYS 501 – Hermeneutics – Lecture 8 – Historical Schools of Interpretation – Devotional, Liberal and Neo-Orthodox
I. Devotional
A. Emphasis on edifying aspects of Scripture
1. At the expense of creedal theology
2. Subjective and existential experience, rather than objective truth
B. Grew out of Pietism which developed out of the Reformation
1. Born of desire to promote personal sense of religious duty
2. Cast off doctrinal confessionalism
C. Problems
1. Often succumbs to allegorical interpretation
2. May be substituted for necessary exegetical and doctrinal studies
II. Liberal
A. Derived from Rationalism vs. Authoritarianism debate
1. Rationalism – Biblical assertions not in accord with current thinking are to be rejected
2. Authoritarianism – the human mind must submit to what God has spoken
B. Liberal interpretation accepts the former – the Word must submit to the mind of man
C. Results in radical criticism of the Scriptures
D. Basic Principles of Rationalistic liberal hermeneutics
1. Modern mentality governs our approach to Scripture
2. Redefined concept of inspiration
a. All supernaturalism is rejected
b. Religious experience is substituted
c. “Truth” is subjective and existential
d. doctrinal content of Scripture is not binding
3. Redefined concept of the supernatural
a. All is within the context of man’s natural ability
b. Miracles are treated as mythology
4. Religion of Israel is in state of growth and development
a. Scripture and the understanding thereof is evolving
b. God Himself, and the concept of Him is evolving
5. Accommodation
a. Scripture must be accommodated to modern culture
b. “Truth” becomes relative
6. Scripture to be interpreted historically, not as authoritative revelation
a. Theology is ever changing, according to its historical setting
b. Nothing can become canonical truth
III. Neo-Orthodox
A. Response to liberalism, founded by Karl Barth
B. Basic Principles
1. Revelation principle – denial of inspiration and infallibility
a. The Bible is mixture of truth and error, because of human element
b. Scripture is testimony to revelation, not revelation itself
c. Revelation is when God speaks, not necessarily Scripture
d. God’s Word is subjective, mystical, momentous existential expression
e. This word is not constant, but exists only during the mystical moment
2. Christological principle – God’s word is Jesus Christ
a. 2 Christs – the Eternal Christ, and the Historical Jesus
b. Only the Eternal (Geshichte) has validity, not the historical
3. Totality principle – all Scripture to be understood according to Christological principle
4. Mythological principle – Scripture consists of myths, not religious history
a. Scripture records the personal existential religious experiences of the writers
b. Fall, Incarnation, Parousia, etc. all rejected as myths
c. Bible accounts are used to explain man’s religious experience
5. Existential Principle – man is to seek personal experiences when reading Scripture
a. Aspects of the devotional schools
b. Academic aspects are rejected
c. Everything is relative to man and his senses
d. There is no objective reality in Scripture
6. Paradoxical Principle – basis of Dialectic Theology
a. Stresses assertion and counter-assertion
b. Faith is not based on objective reasonable truth
c. Faith is beyond reason, and counter to reason
Comments
The notes on God evolving in “Liberalism” would make a good case for biblical theology strengthening alongside systematic theology. The fundamentalist and evangelical church allowed the dispensationalists distort biblical theology and systematics leaves out most considerations of process, historical flow, any dynamic aspect of God and his work. A strong and developing biblical theology could do damage to the liberal school. nathan.
nathan on December 23, 2004 at 07:42 AM
How much do you personally know about Barth? Have you read any of his “Dogmatics”? I think most of us have relied on VanTil’s assessment and apologetic against Barth and rightly so. I would like to know more about what Barth meant about the Bible as myth. I have found Tolkien’s and Lewis’ understanding of myth to be helpful and closer to what I believe to be true about language, literature, and human history. Our entire community, including the church, today, has embraced the “liberal,” “scientific,” definition of myth, dividing myth from truth, distinguishing myth from history. I’m too much of an ancient and much less of a modernist than I ought to be. How about you? Nathan.
nathan on December 23, 2004 at 07:51 AM
On your first note, are you saying that a thorough-going biblical theology would destroy the current “openness of God” insanity? I should think so.
On your second note, I have not read any Barth firsthand that I can recall.
I am much more of an ancient also. Both Lewis and Tolkien derived much of their ideas about the nature of myth from George MacDonald. In discussing the mythopoeic art, Lewis says that it is not really a literary art at all, i.e. not one whose medium is words. The real medium of myth is rather the story itself, which is the vehicle for conveying truth. The words aren’t of primary importance, just as when you receive a letter telling of good news, it is the news you remember, not the words.
Have you read any MacDonald? Lilith, Phantastes, the Golden Key et al.? Lewis said “I should have been shocked in my ‘teens if anyone had told me that what I learned to love in Phantastes was goodness. But now that I know, I see there was no deception. The deception is all the other way round—in that prosaic moralism which confines goodness to the region of Law and Duty, which never lets us feel in our face the sweet air blowing from ‘the land of righteousness’...”
andrew on December 23, 2004 at 11:45 AM
