Church Tradition, Reading Scripture and N.T. Wright (part 2)

In the previous post, I noted several comments from Wright on how the Church has misread and distorted the gospels. I found much in Wright’s essay that I appreciated, and as one who comes from a tradition that undervalues the Gospels and ‘spiritualizes’ the kingdom, I completely understand his reaction against this view. However, I have reservations about the way that he pits ‘tradition’ against historical reconstruction and particularly his assertions that ‘the whole church’ or ‘the entire Western tradition’ has misunderstood the Gospels. Let me make two points.

1) The goal of biblical scholarship (indeed of any scholarship) is to advance knowledge. Scholars identify unresolved issues and attempt to provide solutions; we reassess the sources in light of new evidence, such as archaeological discoveries or new philosophical theories about knowledge. We put forth ideas that are often in conflict with previous interpreters. But at what point is it correct to declare all previous interpreters wrong not merely on issues of individual verses but rather on whole subjects like the Gospels (or Paul)? Note, this is not just saying ‘Hey, we have missed this key issue that needs to be included’. Rather, this is declaring ‘Hey, you all have gotten the whole thing wrong! This is how it really is’. Wright’s claim in the quotes listed in the previous post is not merely that we have misunderstood some aspect, but rather that the whole church—every previous interpreter—has completely missed the whole thing. The church has sailed the ship in the wrong direction for 2000 years! Or, more strongly, the church has not even been on the right boat. This is a bold claim, and although Wright is arguing for the importance of understanding the Gospels and Jesus historically, it raises for me a theological question: If the whole of the church has gotten it wrong, does it mean that God’s Spirit has not actually been guiding his people in their reading of Scripture?

2) I’m no expert on the Reformation, but Wright’s claim to be upholding the Reformation seems mistaken. The Reformers certainly stood opposed to tradition, but they didn’t declare the tradition to be wholly wrong. Luther and Calvin regularly turned to Augustine, for example, for support for their interpretations. They certainly went beyond Augustine at key points, but they were keen to make sure that others in the church’s tradition supported their interpretations. Indeed, a number of scholars have appealed for Wright to give more attention to earlier interpreters, not least because Wright may well find supporters for his views (Mike Bird has made this point on several occasions particularly in his response to Wright at IBR in 2010; after drafting these comments I read Edith Humphrey’s essay, ‘Glimpsing the Glory’, in Jesus, Paul and the People of God and she makes some very pointed remarks to Wright about the issue ). The whole issue raises this question for me: when proposing a radical reworking of a particular issue (such as the meaning of the Gospels or justification), how important is support from previous interpreters?

I don’t think there are easy answers to these questions. I find neither a ‘blind’ acceptance of tradition nor Wright’s absolute rejection of tradition acceptable. There must be a middle ground that recognises the value of previous interpreters while also realising that they were humans. Michael Gorman makes some good points here about the role of the creeds (and tradition) that are worth reflection.

I hope that this post doesn’t come across as another bash Wright argument. However we treat the relationship between biblical scholarship and church tradition, there is much in this essay by Wright worth pondering and much that the church does need to hear.

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Mark Bonnington Says:

Friday, 20 January 2012 at 6:22 pm

Interesting. Let me defend NTW a bit and try to sqaure the circle.

Tom is, of course, to some extent, a captive of his Anglican context. In The Bible and the Authority of God he is clear that tradition and reason are not legs of a stool alongside Scripture (contra many who give them equal authority as sources of theology) but more like guy ropes steading the flagpole of Scripture. And there’s no place for experience at all, a judgement influenced I think by claims to make experience crucial in the sexuality debates of the Church of England – a move that seems strange to any from a Wesleyan stable where the Wesleyan quad gives it prominent place. That way lie dragons… hard-bitten experience teaches him! Ironically…

In this case I think he sees reason and tradition as ways of thinking with Scripture (so we don’t reinvent the wheel in every generation) but not authoriative except to the degree that they illuminate Scripture. I’m not really sure that that is so different to the Reformers, though he is less concerned than they were with the need to claim authenticity by appealing to their continuity with the ‘greats’ like Augustine (as opposed to later catholic tradition). Luther, Calvin et al quote the Fathers very selectively of course (peferring Confessions to City of God etc..). Despite claims to the contrary ‘justifcation by grace through faith alone’ is just never as clear in the Fathers as Luther makes it in 1517 and he was prepared to use it as the basis for a re-ordering of the canon!

NTW is also a principally a synthetic thinker not an analytic one. He starts with big paradigms and shows how they illuminate the detail, others build walls with bricks of detail and then stand back and look at the whole picture. If there is one. These two groups really don’t like each other much and, although most are, in principle, keen to meet in the midde methodologically, they can’t help but look at the reading of the text at right angles to one another. Hence NTW tends to make sweeping statements about the basic mis-oreitnation of early interpreters (especially those influenced by baddies like Plato and Aristotle).

NTW seems to see the problem of not allowing the mainstream tradition to control interpretation and is enough of an English evangelical (and perhaps more honest than the Reformers) in now wanting to quote selectively when they support him and ignore them when they do not. I’m sure he knows that there are early interpreters who side with him more often, but they are radicals like Irenaeus and Tertullian. So slightly embarassing millenarian company. For an Anglican bishop at least. (He has quite often been accused of being a Jehovah’s Witness by readers of his eschatology.) Even the chilliasts are not very consistent supporters. So straight to the text.

I presume you heard Marcus Bockmuehl’s session on whether Paul ‘went to heaven’ when he died at the Wheaton conference? To my mind it amounted to little more than a run through the diversity of views on such matters in the Fathers with very little serious exegesis of Paul himself. That’s the kind of thing NTW seems to me to be rightly suspicious of. Learned, erudite, but largely irrelevant to the rendering of Paul (in this case).

But it’s NTW’s conclusions that drive him to where he is wrt. tradition. With honesty, he doesn’t want to appeal to it since its support is vascillating at best, he doesn’t want to let it control his exegesis and he thinks it took and early anti-Jewish turn. In this he is surely right. In this respect (but not in many others like actually wanting to change stuff to give up on bishops etc..) he is nearer to the radical reformers who wanted to push the ‘sola Scriptura’ principle harder and further than the magisterial Reformers thought politic. Which, I submit, is why the radicals in the churches love him and the Reformed mainstream are a bit suspicious.

So I don’t think it’s an absolute rejection of tradition. In fact he is really very comfortable with the tradition, the creeds etc.. He just sees the problems of appealing to it as a source of authority rather than a source of enlightnement. And yes that can raise the problem of continuity with the mainstream church’s reading of Scripture. From the presence of their Saviour Conrad Grebel,George Blaurock and Felix Manz rejoice to see his day.