THE ROLE OF NATURAL KNOWLEDGE IN BIBLICAL INTERPRETATION AS KEY TO SOLVING THE PROTESTANT PROBLEM (original) (raw)

This is the rough draft of a presentation I gave at the Davenant Convivium 2018. Abstract: Orthodoxy might be defined as right belief. A person would be considered fully orthodox if they adhere to all the doctrines which are necessary for true Christian belief and denies none (implicitly or explicitly) of the doctrines which are necessary for true Christian belief. Our definition of orthodoxy, however, seems to cause significant problems for Protestantism as a whole. The problem could be broken down as follows: (1) The definition of “orthodoxy” seems to imply that there is an official extra-biblical list of doctrines containing a minimum of true Christian teachings to which a person must adhere to be considered orthodox. (2) As has often been noted, it would seem that Protestantism (due to the doctrine of Sola Scriptura and the doctrine of the priority of individual interpretation as led by the Holy Spirit) makes it impossible for there to be any official extra-biblical list containing a minimum of true Christian teachings to which a person must adhere to be considered orthodox. Alister E. McGrath and Darren C. Marks, in the Blackwell Companion to Protestantism, note that “The ‘Protestant problematic’ (Karl Rahner) is that it places priority on individual conscience in response to revelation—in the Bible and the experience of salvation—as its defining characteristics. As such it must create the possibility, but not the necessity, of interpretative difference in doctrine, practice and polity.” This, then, is the protestant problem: How can we “infallibly” determine which doctrines are necessary for a person to be considered orthodox if the only authority for Protestant theology is the Bible, as interpreted by the individual reader? Any approach to solving the protestant problem must be multifaceted. For example, one must reconsider the doctrine of Sola Scriptura and the notion of individual interpretation, the interaction between the individual and the interpretative community, the role of Christian doctors and of the Holy Spirit, how we should understand theological authority, truth, infallibility, certainty, etc. Part of the solution to the protestant problem is, I propose, found in the role of natural knowledge in biblical interpretation. In this paper, I will argue that natural knowledge of man, God, and the universe is necessary for biblical interpretation, and is a key element in a well-rounded solution to the protestant problem.