The Nature and Function of Christian Doctrine
From the earliest days of the church's history, Christians have made the journey from Scripture to theology. Diverse methods for connecting the written word of God in the Bible with Christian teachings or doctrines have been developed throughout many different historical periods. Modern Western scholars label the study of this subject as theological hermeneutics, the theory of interpretation (hermeneutics) related to language about God (theology). Let us first consider what Christian doctrine is and does, and then briefly examine some of the principal ways Christians have journeyed from Bible to doctrine, exploring problems encountered along the way and theological responses.
The Nature and Function of Christian Doctrine
Basically, Christian doctrine is simply the teachings of the Christian faith. For some Christians who hold a high view of church authority, Christian doctrine may be defined as the official, definitive teachings of the church. In any case, although based upon and tested by Scripture, Christian doctrine is more than repetition or reorganization of the words of Scripture. We cannot simply "collate the data" from the Bible to make the doctrines of the faith.
Christian communities engage in critical self-examination of the language they use to speak of the mystery of God. This critical reflection upon the day-to-day or "firstorder" language of the faith means that theology (language about God) is the next step, or "second-order" language. So a more precise definition of Christian doctrine would be the use of second-order religious language by members of Christian communities to describe basic teachings of their faith in the most coherent way possible. For many Christians these basic teachings are first of all derived from the Bible. The traditions of Christian communities (including their surrounding cultures) and the personal experience of Christians also shape doctrine. For example, the doctrine of the Trinity is not fully developed in the Bible. Rather, the doctrine's biblically warranted formulation resulted from a centurieslong historical process in the early church.
The theologian George Lindbeck has described three different approaches to doctrine in recent Christian theology. The "cognitive-propositional" approach views doctrines as providing information and making truth claims about objective realities in the external world. The "experiential-expressive" approach interprets doctrines as symbolizing inner feelings and experiences. The "cultural-linguistic" approach understands doctrines as rules, which work something like grammar, guiding the ways Christians speak of their faith.
Examining doctrines based upon their function as rules, rather than defending them as propositional explanations of reality or expressed symbols of inner experiences, provides a way to account for doctrinal development and change. For example, using Athanasius's rule that "whatever is said of the Father is said of the Son, except that the Son is not the Father," one might trace doctrinal development of the Trinity across the first four centuries.
Scripture as the Norm of Doctrine
The inspiration and authority of Scripture have evoked much debate and controversy among Western Christians in the modern era. Much effort has been expended in proposing and defending various theories regarding the nature of the Bible and diverse ways Christians understand its authority as Holy Scripture. Despite continuing differences over the status of the so-called apocryphal (deuterocanonical) books, the major Christian traditions agree that both the Old and New Testaments make up the canon, the rule that governs the teachings of the faith.
Christians believe God has spoken and continues to speak in a unique way through the particular books that constitute the canon of Scripture. Theological statements about the Bible's inspiration may be understood as human efforts to explain the practical reality that God spoke and still speaks to the people of God through these writings. When recognized and read as Holy Scripture, the Bible becomes uniquely authoritative for Christian belief and practice. Scripture also serves as an inexhaustible source of guidance for the people of God.
One valuable way theologians describe the Bible's special authority is to characterize Scripture as the "norm-making norm" or "rule-making rule" of the faith. In other words, the Bible is the rule on which all other traditions of Christian faith depend and against which they are tested. For evangelical and other biblically centered Christian traditions, this view describes all other sources of religious authority as subordinate to and evaluated by Scripture.
Given the Bible's rich diversity, merely using verses of Scripture as prooftexts for Christian doctrines is an inadequate way to connect Bible and doctrine. Even a beginning student of the Bible can recognize that citing verses out of context has been used to endorse such sinful practices as burning witches (Exod. 22:18) and rationalizing slavery (Eph. 6:5). Instead, discovering the patterns of Scripture offers deeper understanding of the Bible's authority as the norm of doctrine than prooftexting can provide. A few highlights from the history of biblical interpretation can assist us in the journey from Scripture to theology.
Methods in the History of Interpretation
Among various interpretive methods used by early Christian writers, typology and allegory in particular were extensively developed. Typology identifies a correspondence between a person or event and a "similar situation" in the biblical text. So one person or event becomes a "type" of another. Typology assumes some sort of historical connection between the two parts of the correspondence. One biblical example is Paul's description of the relationship between Christ and Adam (Rom. 5:12-21). Adam is "a type of the one who was to come [Christ]" (v. 14).
Allegory also interprets a "similar situation" between someone or something in the text and another person or thing. The correspondence may involve persons, groups, events, or even material objects. The explanation of Jesus' parable of the Wheat and Tares (Matt. 13:36-43) provides a biblical example. Unlike typology, no historical connection is necessarily assumed to exist between the two parts of the correspondence. This lack of restriction eventually leads to loss of hermeneutical control, resulting in allegorical flights of fancy. For example, Origen, the master of allegory, once interpreted the kidneys of a sacrificial calf to represent the soul of Christ (Homilies on Leviticus 3.5).
Despite these difficulties, the allegorical method eventually became the dominant interpretative method until the Reformation of the 16th century. Various systems of interpretation with complex levels of meaning developed. The most common was the "fourfold sense" of Scripture with four interpretive levels : (1) historical or literal, (2) allegorical, (3) moral or tropological, and (4) mystical or anagogical. Theological interpretation of Scripture likewise moved through four temporal levels: (1) the past, (2) the connection of past and present, (3) what shall be done in the present or immediate future, and (4) the future of eternity. Interpreting the word "Jerusalem" in a biblical text provides a simple example. The literal level refers to the historical city of Jerusalem. The allegorical level symbolizes the soul's quest for salvation. The moral level interprets the church's struggles against sin in the world (the "church militant"). The mystical level points to the heavenly Jerusalem. During the high Middle Ages this elaborate system of interpretation of the "sacred page" became closely allied with scholastic theology.
This system's complexity created many opportunities for interpretive elaboration, rationalization, and abuse, which caused the Reformers to reject allegory. Following the watchword of "Scripture alone" (sola Scriptura), they instead favored a simpler method of interpretation, closely tied to Scripture's literal sense.
Pressured by both experimental science and the Enlightenment, much Protestant theology moved toward a "flat Bible" approach. Some theologians understood the Bible as a collection of divinely given truths or even facts, guaranteed by inspiration. Theology was to organize and systematize "scientifically" all the truths or facts of the Bible. Responding to the challenge of historical-critical method, more sophisticated versions of biblical theology (e.g., history of salvation) located Scripture's truth in reconstructed historical events "behind the text" Across the theological spectrum of modern Protestantism the doctrine of revelation came to occupy a key place in connecting Scripture with other doctrines.
Revelation and Theology
The doctrine of revelation was a secondary issue in Christian theology before the 18th century. Theologians commonly understood revelation as communication of information about a God who was knowable. Sin blinded people from knowing God, but through the gift of God's grace, knowledge of God was available to humanity. Theologians assumed the availability of knowledge of God; it was a background belief that did not need explicit proof.
The Enlightenment challenged traditional Christian theology, undermining the belief that God could be known through human reason. Immanuel Kant (1724-1804) argued that realities transcending time and space were not knowable by pure reason. Traditional "philosophical proofs" of God's existence were invalid, since God could not be known rationally, but only through faith. Religion was limited to practical truths of the moral law, established by the voice of conscience.
Theologians who responded to Kant's claims about the limits of rational knowledge could no longer assume the availability of knowledge of God as a gift of grace. Instead, they thought they needed to demonstrate the plausibility of knowledge of God. Even if they could not rationally prove that knowledge of God was available to humanity, they sought to show that it was reasonable to hold this belief. Establishing the possibility of knowledge of God was a prior task to the question of salvation. Theology's first question was no longer "How can we be saved?" but "What knowledge do we possess to proceed?"
Modern theologians, both liberal and conservative, developed elaborately argued doctrines of revelation in their quest to establish philosophical foundations or rational grounds for Christian beliefs. Revelation was no longer a secondary doctrine, but instead the first doctrine for theology to consider, even before discussing the doctrine of God. Revelation became an "umbrella concept" to cover all God's dealings with humanity.
Elevating the doctrine of revelation made it vulnerable to serious criticism during the second half of the 20th century. Biblical scholars pointed out that this expanded view of revelation does not reflect the specialized way the Bible speaks of revelation - as "uncovering" a mystery or prophecy to God's people (e.g., Matt. 10:26). Focusing on the Bible's status as revelation often ignores what the Bible actually says about revelation and its limits. Philosophical critiques examined difficulties with the special categories of knowing that theologians created for knowledge deriving from revelation. Also, the cultural shift from modernity to postmodernity rendered suspect all forms of knowing that claimed to rest upon universal philosophical foundations. Finally, pastoral critiques highlighted dangers of shifting theology's emphasis from God's saving grace to the doctrine of revelation itself. Theological conflicts over worship and the replacement of theological language with psychological language in ministry reflected the separation between theology and pastoral ministry.
Recent Theological Responses
Among many diverse responses to the problem of revelation in contemporary theology, three promising approaches can be highlighted. First, theology might be reorganized to begin with basic Christian convictions and practices, rather than contemporary difficulties in knowing God. Pastoral approaches to Christian doctrine, which emphasize Christian practices, build bridges between theology and daily life in Christian communities.
Second, narrative approaches use "story" as a master concept for theology. Narratives of individuals and communities are connected with "the master story" found in Scripture and the story of Christianity.
Finally, canonical approaches emphasize the historical and theological process through which the Bible is read holistically as authoritative Scripture. A postcritical canonical approach, which accepts yet moves beyond historical-critical and controlled typological approaches, offers a method of theological reflection attuned to the patterns of Scripture.
The journey from Scripture to theology continues in our day to explore old and new ways in which the Bible serves as the guide for Christian faith.
FOR FURTHER READING
CHARLES J. SCALISE