Biblicist Hermeneutics

Back to Christian Smith’s Bible Made Impossible, The: Why Biblicism Is Not a Truly Evangelical Reading of Scripture : Smith’s argument against Biblicism rests on the “pervasive interpretive pluralism” evident among evangelical Biblicists. Despite their claim to understand the plain meaning of Scripture, they disagree on issues large and small – theological questions like the millennium, the mode and subjects of baptism, and predestination; moral and political questions about male-female relations, homosexuality, and war. This interpretive pluralism is not accidental either, but reflects the polysemic, multivocal, and multivalent character of the Bible itself. Smith knows that his argument doesn’t refute the whole Biblicist paradigm, but by demonstrating the existence of interpretive pluralism and by showing it is unavoidable, he has rendered Biblicists’ theoretical claims about Scripture’s inerrancy, authority, and consistency practically irrelevant.

What interpretive pluralism actually demonstrates, though, is not irrelevance of inerrancy or convictions about biblical authority, but the poverty of the hermeneutical expectations of Biblicism.

Smith calls these “democratic perspicuity” (the belief that anyone can grasp the “plain meaning of the text”), “commonsense hermeneutics” (the notion that Scripture should be read in its “explicitly, plain, most obvious, literal sense”), and the “handbook model” that claims that the doctrines and morals of Scripture can be assembled into “something like a handbook or textbook . . . on a full array of subjects.”

I think Smith is somewhat misleading in his characterization of Biblicist views of perspicuity. Many evangelical Biblicist accept the Westminster Confession’s acknowledgement that “All things in Scripture are not alike plain in themselves, nor alike clear unto all,” so that the things “necessary to be known, believed, and observed, for salvation” are “clearly propounded.” Smith himself seems to hold to some version of limited perspicuity. Scripture “does not leave us in the dark about its purpose, center, and key: Jesus Christ,” he says, and he notes elsewhere that Scripture clearly and insistently demands generosity.

Absent these hermeneutical assumptions, the threat of interpretive pluralism is greatly reduced. An inerrantist might think that a book inspired by the Creator would reflect something of His infinite depth. One might even think that, as it is God’s glory to conceal a matter, we should expect obscurities and challenges in the text, God treating us as kings whose glory is to search out a matter.

But what about relevance? If an inerrant Bible produces plural interpretations, does it matter that it is inerrant? Smith’s is a challenging question, but I don’t believe that he has demonstrated the irrelevance of inerrancy. Belief that the Bible is God’s word written encourages diligence and perseverance in the always unfinished task of interpretation, and it gives confidence that the Spirit will lead the church to truth as we stick to the Word He inspired.