First Theology: God, Scripture & Hermeneutics

When doing theology must we start with God, the Bible or hermeneutics? For postmodernism we must start with herme-neutics. God and the Bible as his Word are not seen as objective realities but only as realities with can only be discussed in the context of faith- and reading-communities. Already some years ago Kevin VanHoozer in a book with the title God, Scripture & Hermeneutics: First Theology argued that questions about these three issues belong together.

Kevin VanHoozer unashamedly identifies the Bible with the Word of God. When we do that, hermeneutics is governed by the self witness of the Scripture and can never be an activity that can be undertaken apart from this self witness. Reading the Scripture as the voice of God shows that our view of God is dependent on the Scripture and our view on Scripture is dependent on our view on God. God is not the construct of a faith-community and Scripture has a real and fixed meaning that is related to authorial intent.

In the context of the canon and the development of the history of revelation we can speak of an extended meaning in comparison with the original meaning. The extension is always in the line of the original meaning. I would say that we know more about the referent of Old Testament passages that readers or hearers could know under the Old Testament dispen­sation.

According to postmodernism there is nothing outside the text. According to the classical view on the Scripture and of God, the triune God really exists and is not dependent on the Christian community of faith. The text of Scripture cannot be really under-stood apart from the conviction that the triune God really exist and he speaks in and through the Scripture. The Scripture is the source of real and objective knowledge about God; knowledge that is not dependent upon the person who knows, but upon God who has revealed himself.

VanHoozer rightly argues that postmodernism is a radically new suspicion of hermeneutics itself. He completely disagrees with Stanley Hauerwas who maintains that the whole endeavor to interpret the Bible on its own term is vain nosense. VanHoozer defends a theological hermeneutics and a theological inter-pretation of the Scripture. This means that hermeneutics and interpretation is based on the view that God transcends the play of language in writing.

VanHoozer ends his study with the statement that a Christian theologian must be a truth-teller, truth-deer and truth sufferer.  A real theologian makes Christian truth claims. Real truth complains always surpass the community to which the person who makes this claim, belong. Truth requires evangelical passion. The willing-ness to suffer is an indispensable element of this passion.

Kevin VanHoozer, First Theology: God, Scripture & Hermeneutics  (Downers Grove: InterVarsity Press, 2002), paperback 384 p., price $40,-- (ISBN 978-0-8308-2681-0).

From the Mouth of God

Why should we believe that – as Jesus our Lord and Savior – that the Bible is the mouth of God. In From the Mouth of God Sinclair Ferguson, a former minister of the First Presbyterian Church in Colombia, South Carolina and a former professor of systematic theology at Westminster Theological Seminary in Philadelphia, answers this question. His book is highly relevant especially in a day when a growing number of people, although calling them-selves Evangelicals, question whether the Bible is the infallible and inerrant Word of God.

With regards to the fact the books of the Bible were written by human authors Ferguson point to the fact undoubtedly the human writers of Scripture were conscious that they were expressing their own words as they wrote. Btu at the same time they were under the sovereign direction of the Spirit. God prepared the human writes of the Bible with regards of all aspects of their lives to express his Word in their words.

Both the Old Testaments prophets and New Testament apostles were aware they what they preached and what was written by them was not merely an expression of their witness to the God of Israel and Jesus Christ. They believed that what they said and wrote was to be heard and read as God’s Word.

We can trust the Bible as God mouth. But how must we apply the Bible in our lives. Ferguson gives several keys for reading and applying the Bible in the right way. We should read passages and text of the Bible in their context and understand how to read different kinds of genre. All important is to realize that both the Old Testament and the New Testament point us to Jesus Christ.

The Bible is given that we as fallen creatures may be reconciled with our Creator through Him. Ferguson rightly urges that is im-portant to read the whole Bible. He advises to read every year the entire Bible. He also says it can be very helpful to read just a whole book of the Bible in one of two sittings. I heartily agree. How can the Bible shape our lives when we do not know its content?!

The book of Ferguson is well written and easily to follow also for them who do not have English as their native language. I heartily recommend it. May the Lord use it to teach is to honor and obey Him.

Sinclair Ferguson, From the Mouth of God: Trusting, Reading, and Apply­ing the Bible, The Banner of Truth, Edinburgh 2014; ISBN 978-1-84871-242-3; pb. 209 pp., price £7,50.