Modern Historical Criticism as a Dead End

Why classical metaphysics is needed for biblical exegesis in the service of historic orthodoxy

Historic Christian orthodoxy as contained in the ecumenical creeds of the ancient church and the Reformation confessions contains lots of metaphysics. Some metaphysical doctrines are explicitly stated, such as creatio ex nihilo, the homoousios, and Divine simplicity. Much more is implicit, such as the importance of formal and final causation in addition to efficient and material causation in giving a properly scientific account of things. But one would hard pressed to argue that one can hold to Trinitarian orthodoxy today while evacuating dogmatics of all of classically realist metaphysics. Yet, this is what the modern discipline of biblical studies has tried to do since the rise of historical criticism.

Many Protestants fall into the trap of failing to comprehend the problems involved in conflating modern hermeneutics with the Reformation. They reject the traditional four-fold sense of Scripture and the idea of a spiritual meaning in addition to the literal meaning as dangerously subjective. They contend that limiting meaning to the original intent of the human author allows us to employ tools of philology, history, and archeology to get at the objective meaning of the text. The advantage, in their view, is to guard against subjectivism in interpretation.

The basic problem, however, is that the more a hermeneutical method presses hard toward reducing the meaning of a given text to one, single layer or one, easily identified meaning only, the more the meaning of the text is historically conditioned by its culture and period, and the less it is capable of making universally true affirmations.

Universal Truth and Historical Particularity

The unique characteristic of Scripture is that it presents universal and timeless truth through historical events and their interpretation. The Incarnation is the prime example, but the entire self-revelation of God to Israel in the OT is the same kind of revelation. God acts in salvation (Exodus) and judgment (Exile) and the inspired prophets interpret the meaning of the historical acts. The question is whether these history-conditioned interpretations can ever rise above saying what that particular historical event meant then and there. Can it be possible that universal and timeless truth (eg. metaphysical truth) could be somehow contained in the particular historical event?

It seems to me that the early church’s confession “Jesus is Lord” requires that this be possible. This confession is not merely a statement about Israel’s Messiah, but also about the Lord and Savior of the entire cosmos. Jesus Christ is confessed in Colossians 1, for example, as the Creator and Sustainer of the universe, not merely as an important figure in Jewish religion. By his resurrection from the dead, Paul asserts repeatedly that what is revealed is his nature as one in being with Israel’s God.

So, it seems to me that we have the following dilemma: either we scale back the universality and timelessness of central Christian convictions (God created the world out of nothing, Jesus Christ is Lord of heaven and earth, etc.) or we see those affirmations as grounded in the prophetic interpretation of the mighty acts of God in history. The fact that we must use reason in contemplating the implications of the prophetic texts in order to arrive at the metaphysical implications of the Biblical text does not necessarily have to mean that we are “reading into” the text. It could just be part of the wrestling with the text we need to engage in if we wish to enter fully into communion with the Divine Author.

It seems to me that we should expect that if the infinite-personal, transcendent God wanted to reveal truth to finite creatures then that revelation would be multi-layered and rich, rather than straight-forward and simple. The interplay between human authorial intent and Divine authorial intent reflects the asymmetry between the Creator and the creature; the creature cannot comprehend the Creator fully, and it takes time and effort for the creature to attain as much comprehension as is possible for the creature to attain.

Modernity and Technology

Moderns are often mistrustful of human reason to a degree that would be surprising to medieval thinkers. And, I believe, many contemporary Christians are not consciously aware of how deeply influenced by modernity they are in this regard. Part of the degradation of human beings in the modern world is the denigration of the ability of human reason to perceive metaphysical truth. One could say “we are all postmodernists now.” I, however, think we need to strive to escape the nihilistic implications of postmodern relativism.

I believe that what I call “Modernity” is rooted in an original sin and that sin is identified in the Faust legend. It is the desire for power over nature through either magic or technology that enables humans to take the place of God as Creator. Modernity is the giving up of wisdom in exchange for power. Wisdom is for Augustine the goal of Platonism, which he regarded as the best philosophy. Augustine sees three parts to philosophy. In metaphysics we discover what is real. Ethics is the science of how to live in harmony with reality rather than fighting it. Logic is identifying mistakes in reasoning in the other two areas. These three disciplines make up true philosophy according to Plato. Augustine thinks this is true philosophy so far as it goes. Augustine thinks the problem with Plato is not his method but rather the fact that Plato was missing the revelation in the Bible, which is needed to describe reality adequately.

Technology is not based on understanding what reality is, only on how it works. Technology is about manipulating matter to make it do what you want it to do. It is not about understanding its telos, but only about imposing our will on it. Science respects the telos and nature of things and seeks to understand. Technology excludes formal and final causes and focuses only on material and efficient causes. Modernity is the rejection of science (philosophy, wisdom) in favor of technology (which appropriates the label “science”).

Biblical Studies in the past 200 years has tried to model itself on the natural sciences to justify itself as an academic discipline suitable for the university. The problem is that theology does fit in the original medieval idea of the university, but not in the modern university, which is a glorified technology institute. The problem is that in seeking to imitate the modern, natural sciences, Biblical Studies has set aside formal and final cause and focussed on material and efficient causes. This leads to the “naturalization” of the text and the reduction of its meaning to what the human author could have intended given his historical setting. The text can only say something that its historical culture already knew. It ceases to be revelation. This is a dead-end for Christian dogmatics.

Metaphysics and Hermeneutics

Divine authorial intent is known by attending to the final cause of the text. The unity of Scripture is known by attending to the formal cause of the text. Metaphysical implications come to light through attending to the four causes of the text in their unity. Layers of meaning are to be expected when the text is analyzed using the four causes.

As we approach the study of a biblical text we should do so with the metaphysical framework previously derived from the study of many biblical texts as our framework. Doing so will enable us to penetrate deeper into the mystery of God and his relation to the creation. It will help us unpack layers of meaning in the text that otherwise would not be apparent. Every proposed meaning must be traced back to its final cause in the mind of God who inspired it. This is theological exegesis and a self-aware, historically-informed metaphysics is an essential tool in doing it well.