I recently micro-read this revised PhD dissertation:

Brian C. Collins. Scripture, Hermeneutics, and Theology: Evaluating Theological Interpretation of Scripture. Greenville, SC: Exegesis & Theology, 2012.

It’s outstanding. You can download a free PDF of the book here.

Brian Collins and I were PhD students together and were members of the same church. We used to spend the first half of each Saturday morning doing our Hebrew exegesis homework together for the upcoming week. Of all the students I took courses with, Brian is probably the most well-read.

Brian kindly agreed to answer some questions about his PhD dissertation.

1. What is TIS (Theological Interpretation of Scripture)?

That’s a difficult question to answer. Kevin Vanhoozer, in his introduction to the Dictionary for Theological Interpretation of the Bible, observes, “It is easier to say what theological interpretation is not rather than what it is” (19).

TIS isn’t really cohesive enough to be called a movement, but there are some shared concerns:

1. A critique of historical criticism, which is said to have failed in its promise of objective interpretation while also rending the Bible irrelevant.
2. A desire to bridge the divide between biblical studies and theology.
3. A tendency to look toward pre-critical interpreters, especially from the patristic and medieval eras, as models for reading the Bible in a way that integrates exegesis and theology.
4. A related tendency toward adopting a multi-sense approach to interpretation (e.g., the medieval fourfold sense). Sometimes this is linked with certain postmodern literary theories. It also reverts making some sort of tradition authoritative since some controls are needed to establish acceptable and unacceptable interpretations.
5. The relevance of Scripture to the church today is a key issue.

2. In just one paragraph, summarize what you argue in your book.

The Reformation and Post-Reformation theologians and exegetes provide us with a better model for theological interpretation of Scripture than the patristic, medieval, or postmodern approaches often advocated. Thus, I argue that tradition (i.e., history of interpretation and history of theology) is hermeneutically useful but not authoritative. While the reader has a place in the interpretive process (e.g., an unbelieving reader will not rightly understand Scripture), the main task of the interpreter is to understand the meaning of the divine Author in the text of Scripture. This rules out allegorical and reader-response approaches to interpreting Scripture. And yet, theology should not be a discrete second step subsequent to exegesis. Exegesis and theology are intertwined in the interpretive process. Notably, in the Reformation and Post-Reformation periods, the theologians were also exegetes.

3. Do you agree with how Don Carson evaluates TIS in this 2011 article?

Yes. His opening description and his conclusion are spot on. His six propositions are helpful in evaluating TIS. I’ll comment on two of them.

Carson’s first point acknowledges that TIS is recognizing a real problem. Historical critical methods that are “anti-supernatural” and “determined by post-Enlightenment assumptions about the nature of history” do render the Bible irrelevant. Notably, that is what those methods were designed to do. See J. Samuel Preus’s Spinoza and the Irrelevance of Biblical Authority.

Carson’s third point highlights a sticking point with TIS. I found that even prior to the Reformation, interpreters were moving away from the spiritual sense, in part due to the exploitation of allegorical interpretation by heretical groups, in part due to a greater appreciation of the present, material, historical world, and in part due to other factors. Those who wish to return to patristic readings do not reckon with why the approach of the fathers was abandoned and why it was abandoned some time before historical critical methods were developed.

4. What are the major views on Scripture and tradition in church history?

I found the most helpful treatment of this topic to be A. N. S. Lane, “Scripture, Tradition and Church: An Historical Survey,” Vox Evangelica 9 (1975): 37–55. Lane lists the following views:

1. “The Coincidence View.” Scripture and tradition have the same content. Tradition gives us the authoritative interpretation of Scripture. Held by Irenaeus, Tertullian, etc.
2. “The Supplementary View.” Tradition passes on apostolic practices and teachings not found in Scripture. Held to in the later patristic period and in the medieval period. The coincidence view and supplementary view coexisted in the medieval church, but the supplementary view was affirmed at the Council of Trent.
3. “The Ancillary View.” Tradition is often useful, but it is not authoritative. It stands under Scripture. Held by Calvin, Chemnitz, and other Reformers.
4. “The Unfolding View.” Dogma can develop from what was implicit in church tradition. Held by John Henry Newman.

Rejection of Tradition would be a fifth view. Held by certain Anabaptist groups, popular in the early, democratizing United States.

Lane’s treatment is better than Heiko Oberman’s more popular schema of Tradition I and Tradition II (mapping to the coincidence view and the supplementary view, respectively). Oberman thought that the Reformers rejected Tradition II and embraced Tradition I, whereas they rejected both and held to a third position.

5. What do you think is the best view on Scripture and tradition? Why?

I think the ancillary view is the best.

The coincidence view could have worked only very, very early in the church’s history. Someone who directly sat under an apostle’s teaching could say, “I know how to interpret this passage of Scripture: the apostle John interpreted it this way.” But Calvin noted that already in the time of Irenaeus and Tertullian the fathers were claiming things as tradition that everyone, Roman Catholic and Protestant alike, recognized to be erroneous.

The supplementary view doesn’t stand up to historical scrutiny. Over time the extra-biblical traditions that had allegedly been passed down from the apostles could be shown to be later developments. This is why Newman developed the unfolding view, which is unacceptable to Protestants due to its view of the magisterial authority of the Roman Catholic Church.

The rejection of tradition is also deeply problematic. It is a proud view that rejects the need for teachers from the past. It is often a rationalistic view that has a high degree of trust in an individual’s reason to come to right exegetical and theological conclusions on their own. And it is a dangerous point of view. This view was strong in the United States in the nineteenth century. Notice how many cults and unorthodox religious groups emerged in the United States during that period.

The ancillary approach has the benefit of truly valuing tradition while not allowing it to exercise authority over Scripture. The history of doctrine or the history of how a particular passage has been interpreted are immensely helpful to alert interpreters to some of their own unexamined presuppositions, to alert them to the variety of exegetical options, or to protect them from recurring heresies that have already been addressed in the past.

I’ve also found the ancillary approach has applications beyond the issue of Scripture and tradition. Sometimes interpreters implicitly (and maybe even explicitly) take the view that Scripture must be interpreted as meaning x because of certain ANE or Second Temple background or because of certain scientific findings. An ancillary approach welcomes insights from comparative studies or science, but it doesn’t allow them to stand as authorities over Scripture.

6. What do you think is the best approach to exegesis and theology? Why?

I found the model outlined by D. A. Carson to be the best approach (see Scripture and Truth, ed. Carson and Woodbridge, p. 91):

First, we need to understand these component parts.

Exegesis is interpreting the biblical text with the goal of discerning the meaning of the divine and human authors (which are linked to each other) in the text.

Biblical theology is the discipline that seeks to discern the theological emphases of the biblical writers themselves, giving careful attention to the particular theological emphases of specific books, the historical development of theological themes throughout the canon, and the relation of these to the salvation-historical storyline.

Systematic theology (drawing on Carson’s definition in NDBT, 101–2) is the logical organization of theological ideas into a comprehensive worldview based primarily on Scripture and against the backdrop of historical theology, with the intention of relating Scripture to present-day concerns and issues.

For my purposes here I’m going to include under the category of historical theology both the history of how passages of Scripture have been interpreted in the past and the history of how the different doctrines have been formulated.

Second, we need to understand how the diagram relates those parts to each other.

I think the control line at the bottom is very important. Biblical theology needs to be based on exegesis, and systematic theology needs to be based on exegesis and an exegetically grounded biblical theology in light of sound historical theology.

But the arrows that arch back are important as well. When I exegete a text, I should not try to come to it as if I know nothing about the rest of the Bible or the history of Christian interpretation or of systematic theology. Instead, I want all of that to bear on my exegesis of the text. Now, my exegesis may challenge an ST conception. But if it does so, it means I should check that ST conclusion along the control line to see whether or not it is well founded. On the other hand, properly founded ST should govern and delimit my exegesis.

7. What advice do you have for theological students today who are considering following the theological method of the early church rather than the theological method of modern evangelical scholars such as Don Carson?

I enjoy and benefit from reading the church fathers. For instance, when I recently taught through the Beatitudes for Sunday School, I tried to survey the literature beginning with Gregory of Nyssa, Augustine, and other fathers before moving to Luther and Calvin and through Perkins and Watson to the modern interpreters such as Carson, Nolland, France, and Luz. The fathers do think of the Bible as a whole, and sometimes they pick up on allusions that link parts of Scripture together that others miss. Sometimes they have helpful pastoral observations.

But it is also important to recognize that the multiple-sense approach that the fathers use is not the interpretative approach of the NT writers with regard to the OT. It is an alien hermeneutic that the Greeks used to interpret Homer. It was adopted in part because the fathers were prone to moralize or atomize texts and because they had a hard time seeing the theological value of concrete historical events. I think interpreting in light of a solid biblical theology addresses these problems, and to revert back to an allegorical approach will not only point us down a problematic exegetical path, but it will likely send us down a problematic theological one as well.