Bible or Reason? The Enlightenment and Understanding Scripture

The first and major shift of interpretation and worldview came during the seventeenth century. The question rested in that of knowledge and authority. Where does knowledge come from? And who has the authority speak on it? No longer did Scripture hold the authority as the medium of knowledge concerning the divine, rather a person’s own reason could seek out God and truth without a guide. Perhaps the first man to bring this to light was Benedict de Spinoza. Spinoza shows himself to be a rationalist and seminal figure of the Enlightenment. For Spinoza, reason, and not Scripture, holds the high place in man’s search for knowledge. As a matter of fact, Scripture is not a source of natural or speculative or historical knowledge. “Scripture only seeks to inculcate piety and obedience to God.” (Hans Frei, The Eclipse of Biblical Narrative, 42)

Notice the difference between Spinoza and Irenaeus or Luther. Spinoza’s worldview is light years away from the Christian theistic worldview. Christian theism was not thrown away entirely during these later centuries, however a couple of new worldviews came on the scene in rapid succession seeking to overthrow it, specifically deism and naturalism. Both of these could be put under the larger umbrella of rationalism. In both deism and naturalism, special revelation is, to a greater or lesser extent, denied. Knowledge is gained through human reason and scientific methods. As these two rationalistic worldviews came into vogue, the historical-critical method of interpretation rose along with them. It is difficult to determine what came first, the worldviews or the method. What can be seen is that many of the interpreters of the seventeenth century and later began to move away from the conventional Christian theistic worldview as described earlier.

Frei notes too that the literal sense moved further and further away from figurative interpretation. Literal sense would ultimately come to mean the opposite of a figural sense of Scripture. The literal sense would come to be equated to the single meaning of statements.

Rev. Jacob Hercamp
St. Peter’s Lutheran Church
La Grange, MO