"Did God Really Say?"

"Did God really say?" (Gen 3:1) - the first words (generally) attributed to Satan in the history of his activity on earth. With the utterance of these words, albeit a question, a means of deception is laid which is to recur as a test for the people of God through history.

I would like to consider very briefly, a significant time in the history of the Church - the Reformation - and then move on to survey the direction of the Church thereafter.
With good reason, the Evangelical Church today claims as its heritage the Protestant Reformation.

The Reformation was an activity of God, through various people and events, redressing a combination of some helpful and much unhelpful means of understanding Scripture. Of course, the Reformation was more than this but it is the understanding of Scripture which is my focus here.

A simple and helpful summary of the Reformation approach to understanding Scripture is provided by Graeme Goldsworthy in "Gospel & Kingdom"1 - "It was the Protestant reformers who helped the Christian Church see again the importance of the historical and natural meaning of Scripture, so that the Old Testament could be regarded as having value in itself. .......... Protestant interpretation was based upon the concept of the conspicuous (clear and self-interpreting) nature of the Bible. By removing an authority for interpretation from outside the Bible - the infallible Church - the reformers were free to accept and use the principles of interpretation that are contained within the Bible itself."

I believe we can safely include "the philosophies and traditions of men" alongside "the infallible Church" as an outside authority.

To quote Graeme Goldsworthy again, "So the self-interpreting scriptures became the sole rule of faith - Sola Scriptura (Scripture alone) was a rallying-cry of the Reformation."2

Well, there is our reformed doctrinal heritage. On heritage of faith, the Jews would claim "Abraham is our father." (John 8:39). On matters of doctrine or understanding Scripture, the Evangelical Church would claim the Protestant reformers as fathers. But was the faith of the Jews the same as the faith of Abraham? And is the doctrinal position of the Evangelical Church today the same as the Protestant reformers? On the former question, Abraham believed what God said but the Jews had more faith in the traditions of men (Mark 7:8) than what God Incarnate said and did (John 10:25).

On the latter question, the essay "The Eclipse of Biblical Narrative - A Study in Eighteenth and Nineteenth Century Hermeneutics" written by Hans W. Frei provides the answer.

To quote Frei in his introduction, " Western Christian reading of the Bible in the days before the rise of historical criticism in the eighteenth century was usually strongly realistic, i.e. at once the literal and historical, and not only doctrinal or edifying. The words and sentences meant what they said, and because they did so they accurately described real events and real truths that were rightly put only in those terms and no others. Other ways of reading portions of the Bible, for example, in a spiritual or allegorical sense, were permissible, but they must not offend against a literal reading of those parts which seemed most obviously to demand it. Most eminent among them were all those stories which together went into the making of a single storied or historical sequence."3

It was not to remain this way. Many contributers to biblical scholarship and many complex threads brought about a great shift in how the Bible was to be read and understood.
Dr. Conyers Middleton, an English commentator with sceptical leanings, thought that it didn't matter whether Genesis 1-3 was allegory or fact, since its meaning was the same in either case - "that this world had a beginning and creation from God; and that its principal inhabitant man, was originally formed to a state of happiness and perfection which he lost and forfeited, by following his own lusts and passions, in opposition to the will of his Creator."4 Is this not a comfort to those who, today, point to the biblical creation account as demonstrating no more than the sovereignty of God?

Middleton goes on to explain his preference for an allegorical reading of Genesis 1-3, "I am the more readily induced to espouse this sense of it , from a persuasion, that it is not only the most probable and rational, but the most useful also to the defence of our religion, by clearing it of those difficulties, which are apt to shock and make us stumble as it were, at the very threshold."5 Now doesn't this resonate with many today?

Through the efforts of Johannes Cocceius, professor of theology in the University of Leyden, the two things - literal or narrative reading and historical reference - were beginning to come apart as the concept of "Salvation history" was advocated. Toward the end of the eighteenth century, "higher criticism" felt the crucial texts for the hermeneutical question in theology were the supposedly revelatory salvific narratives. Each narrative had to be examined in its own historical context and its own right. Gone was dogmatic unity and authority of the Canon. By this time, the story of Jesus Christ was apparently considered historical but not the Mosaic creation account. However, the story of Jesus Christ was not to remain immune.

Frei observed with the emergence of religious apologetics at this time, the loss of narrative reading. To quote him again, "It is no exaggeration to say that all across the theological spectrum the great reversal had taken place; interpretation was the matter of fitting the biblical story into another world with another story rather than incorporating that world into the biblical story. No one with any sort of theology or religious reflection at all wanted to go counter to the "real" applicative meaning of biblical texts, once it had been determined what it was, even if one did not believe them on their own authority. Hence the right-wing and mediating theologians agreed that the New Testament made the affirmation about Jesus being the Saviour literally, and that it was to be understood that way (though this agreement did not always cover either the miracles he was reported to have performed or those with which he was purportedly associated, especially the virgin birth; nor as we have noted, did it cover literal acceptance of such Old Testament accounts as the six-day creation or the fall, in the book of Genesis). And those on the left of course denied that one has to or can take this affirmation literally."6

The effort to relate faith and history came to an early but decisive climax in D. F. Strauss's "Life of Jesus", published in 1835. To again quote Frei "The explanation of the of the origin of the stories and the clue to their meaning is rather to be found in their author's consciousness, which was historically conditioned to the level of their cultural and religious context. It is finally the phenomenon of a premodern cultural outlook that serves both as historical explanation and hermeneutical clue in the reading of the gospels. This is the climactic reading of eighteenth-century inquiry, for which hermeneutics, and therefore explication, was the theory of exegesis - the text, and whatever its subject matter, being accessible to straight forward scrutiny by the properly trained investigator."7

Strauss was of the "mythical" school. Frei calls them mythophiles. The "mythical' school regarded writers of stories such as the Mosaic creation account and the life of Jesus Christ as having a literal intention but that this intention has to be understood historically, ie within the context of the general thought world of their times. Its meaning is the time-conditioned consciousness from which it was written and which it expresses. We ought to immediately see that to accept Strauss & Co is to open the door to denying biblical narrative of an absolute historical truth having the same meaning for all generations through history since Canon, even before, for redeemed Israel. The shift is away from God speaking to all with the same message - to man interpreting a past man's culturally conditioned experience and, dare I say it, being susceptible to doing this anachronistically.

Biblical hermeneutics underwent a significant change in the nineteenth century due mainly to the romantic and idealist revolution. Interpretation of biblical texts would be affected by the spirit of the day. Biblical narratives suffered at the hands of a new master. To finish with Hans W. Frei, "This has been especially true in the study of biblical narrative. All the more fascinating, in view of this hermeneutical revolution and its large affect on biblical interpretation, is the continuity of the fate of a narrative reading of biblical stories, a continuity that remained unbroken from the days of Deism through the first third of the nineteenth century - unchanged by whatever else happened in biblical study. The realistic narrative reading of biblical stories, the gospels in particular, went into eclipse throughout this period"8

Well, what does all this mean for Sydney Anglicanism today? What hermeneutics is practised today in the Sydney Diocese of the Anglican Church? This writer has observed it for some years but the writings of some clergy and other writers in a debate on the Peace With Evolution forum of your.sydneyanglicans.net website typifies mainstream thought.

Take the following quote from Martin Enkidu Shields on interpretation of Genesis 1 (but before I go on I can't help but express my distaste at the thought behind someone who claims to be Christian, who engages in a serious debate on the Word of God on origins and adopts the pseudonym Enkidu - a mythological being in a mythological account of origins within the "Gilgamesh Epic" that sets itself up against the Word of God).

Martin Shields says this, "This is also too simplistic. Genre effects how information is transmitted, so the genre has an impact on the way we should read the text. We've had considerable discussion previously on the genre of Gen 1 so I won't go over it here (except to say that it is not poetry, but it also is not historiography). One of the problems of Y[oung]E[arth]C[reationist] interpretations is that they treat it as historiography and so misread it. I agree that it contains true information, but not that it can be treated as a historical chronology of creation." Martin Shields again says this, "...because YECS misreads (sic) foundational texts like Gen 1-3, proponents of YECS miss what these passages do say about reality and instead extract from them things they don't say! Finally, I do not seek to reconcile Genesis with science, but instead my aim is to attempt to understand Genesis as its author intended and as the original audience would have received it." (emphasis mine)

Do the foregoing comments of Martin Shields sound familiar? They should, they fit neatly into the hermeneutic approach to biblical study espoused by D.F. Strauss in his work "Life of Jesus" and of others who 'blazed the trail' for higher criticism of Scripture.

It's my guess that Martin Shields does not empty Matthew, Mark, Luke and John's testimony of their historical integrity. But he sure does a thorough job on Genesis 1. He is not alone, however, because many in Sydney Anglican circles today have capitulated to the spirit of recent centuries which seeks to dilute the Word of God of its inspiration by Holy Spirit and thus absolute meaning for all generations of the 'descendants' of Abraham.

Perhaps what sets these Sydney Anglicans apart from others is that they are selective where they do this - principally in the Old Testament. They cannot honestly avow that God spoke (through Moses) clearly of his creation activity and that the heavens, the earth and the sea and all that is in them in a six day period, each day bounded by evening and morning. No, for them, the Author of language did not give a clear message on creation - instead he spoke a simple message but with intricate meaning so that all manner of propositions could be entertained generation after generation.

These Sydney Anglicans 'mouth' they are Reformed Protestants and would dare say they stand with Martin Luther and John Calvin. The reality is they have moved with the spirit of the age and no longer stand with Luther and Calvin on interpretation of Scripture and, consequently, the meaning of Genesis 1. Luther and Calvin allowed God to speak to them whereas Martin Shields & Co are guilty of anachronistic reading (although Shields protests YECs do this, he is the offender) of Genesis 1.

Martin Luther said this, "He (Moses) calls 'a spade a spade' i.e., he employs the terms 'day' and 'evening' without Allegory, just as we customarily do ... we assert that Moses spoke in the literal sense, not allegorically or figuratively, i.e, that the world, with all its creatures, was created within six days, as the words read. If we do not comprehend the reason for this, let us remain pupils and leave the job of teacher to the Holy Spirit."9 Luther also said, "We know from Moses that the world was not in existence before 6,000 years ago."10

John Calvin said this, "For it is not without significance that he divided the making of the universe into six days, even though it would have been no more difficult for him to have completed in one moment the whole work together in all its details than to arrive at its completion gradually by a progression of this sort."11 Calvin also said this, "They will not refrain from guffaws when they are informed that but little more than five thousand years have passed since the creation of the universe."12

These Sydney Anglicans may well be Christian (I cannot judge from here) but like many before them they risk keeping others out of the Kingdom of God as they dilute the Word of God of its power through continuing the tradition of men of the last two and a half centuries in the eclipse of biblical narrative. They cannot see the mighty hand of God in blessing upon the Church and humanity through the Protestant Reformation. Rather they take their cue from the Church and its 'scholars' in decline.

I do not expect to be heeded by many Sydney Anglicans in this posting. They are entrenched in their way. As a wise writer in the past once said "The worst chains are those neither seen or felt by the prisoner." I write this for the person who comes upon this website and inquires after the subject. Friend, don't judge the Church as you see it abroad today. It has been far healthier and more reflective of the glory of God in the past. Trust the promises of God and the assertions of God as Abraham did. He is worth it!

Beware of those who, in many and various subtle ways, on Genesis 1 most destructively ask "Did God Really Say?"

Sam Drucker

Reference:
1. Graeme Goldsworthy - "Gospel & Kingdom" (Lancer) 1992, page 16
2. Ibid pages 16 & 17
3. Hans W. Frei - "The Eclipse of Biblical Narrative - A Study in Eighteenth and Nineteenth Century Hermeneutics" (Yale University Press) 1974, page 1
4. Conyers Middleton - "An Essay on the Allegorical and Literal Interpretation of the Creation and the Fall of Man" Miscellaneous Works, 1752, vol2, page 131
5. Ibid
6. Hans W. Frei - "The Eclipse of Biblical Narrative - A Study in Eighteenth and Nineteenth Century Hermeneutics" (Yale University Press) 1974, pages 130 &131
7. Ibid page 233
8. Ibid page 324
9. Martin Luther in J. Pelikan, editor, "Luther's Works, Lectures on Genesis" (St. Louis, MO) (Concordia Publishing House) 1958
Chs 1-6, 1:6.
10. Ibid page 3
11. J. Calvin - "Institutes of the Christian Religion" J. T. McNeill, editor ( Philadelphia, PA: Westminster Press) 1960, 1.14.22
12. Ibid 2:925