This is proved, first, from statements of Scripture.
This is proved, first, from statements of Scripture.
§ 415. We prove this perspicuity of Scripture: (I) From the explicit testimonies of Scripture. Deut. 30:11: “This commandment that I command you this day is not hidden from you nor is it far off.” The Hebrew reads “is not marvelous and withdrawn,” for those things that are obscure and ambiguous are marvelous and exceed comprehension. (In our treatise On Scripture [1610 Loci Theologici, locus 1], § 78, we dissipated the fog with which Bellarmine obscured this passage in De verbo Dei, bk. 3, c. 2.)
Ps. 19:8: “The commandment of the Lord is lucid.” The psalmist is speaking about two means by which we are led to a knowledge of God. These are nature (or creation) and Scripture (or the Word of God), which he describes in that psalm with many general terms: for example, “the Law,” “the teaching of God,” “the testimony of the Lord,” and “the precepts of the Lord.” Jerome and Lyra take this psalm to refer to all of Scripture, and Genebrardus admits that some Papists take it in the same way. Moreover, those effects that the psalmist attributes to the Word of God cannot be understood solely of the Law. Therefore Bellarmine’s exception goes up in smoke, the objection that “we must take this statement to mean only the precepts of the Lord but not all Scripture.” In Conc. 23 on Psalm 119, Augustine explains the psalmist’s passage generally as being about “God’s Word contained in the Scriptures.” See our treatise On Scripture [1610 Loci Theologici, locus 1], § 76.
Ps. 119:105: “Your Word is a lamp to my feet and a light to my path.”
Prov. 6:23: “For the commandment is a lamp and the Law a light.” Solomon is urging us to a study of the heavenly Word (v. 20) with an argument drawn from effect, which is protection against sins (v. 22); then, lest anyone complain about its obscurity, he adds by anticipation, “the Law is a light” (v. 23).
2 Pet. 1:19: “We have the prophetic word made more sure. You are doing well to pay attention to it as to a lamp shining in a dark place.”
To these statements Bellarmine makes the following general exception: “Scripture is called ‘lucid’ not because it is easy to understand but because, when it has been understood, it illumines people.” By this logic, however, Scripture would be perspicuous not of itself but only by accident; it would not be perspicuous of itself but because of something else, namely, the light of the Church. But whatever is perspicuous only by accident and because of something else cannot be called a lamp and, indeed, something that shines in a dark place. Furthermore, what is clear in such a way that it illumines and sheds light on other things does not need to take and borrow its light from something else. Scripture is clear in such a way that it sheds light on other things, for Peter commands that they “pay attention to the prophetic words as to a lamp, until the day dawns.” He is showing, therefore, that from our reading, meditation, and examination of the divine oracles, a light rises in our hearts. (See our treatise On Scripture [1610 Loci Theologici, locus 1], § 77.)
Hosius makes the exception that “prophetic Scripture is called a lamp because many things in it are clear and because things that were once shadows and enigmas are declared in the Gospel.” We respond. It is sufficient for us that some things—namely, what all must know for salvation—are set forth [clearly] in Scripture. And we are not unwilling to admit that there is a greater light in the New Testament than in the Old. Our Luther used to say, “The Old Testament seems to me to be a moon, and the New Testament a sun, for the Old Testament takes its light from the New.”