A Review of Chapter 15: Reformed Epistemology
and Biblical Hermeneutics

By Jeff G

Chapter 15 by Evan Fales is entitled “Reformed Epistemology and Biblical Hermeneutics”. Being somewhat familiar with Reformed theology I found the title intriguing and was looking forward to some new insights. Unfortunately from the very beginning it would seem he picks the wrong source for discussing this subject. It is not that there is necessarily anything wrong with Alvin Plantinga, it is just that he is more in the line of a reformed philosopher rather than a reformed theologian and if you are going to argue Reformed doctrines it is better to use those methodologies formulated by the theologians from the very beginning of the movement up until modern times. People such as Calvin, Zwingli, Knox, A.A. and Charles Hodge, B.B. Warfield, Arthur Pink, John Rushdony and Wayne Grudem, to name just a few, are the people one should go to when discussing this doctrine. Because of this Mr. Fales, from the very start, wrongly interprets the meaning of the term “Testimony of the Holy Spirit” and the science of biblical hermeneutics as used by the Reformers. From Calvin on this doctrine has never meant that an individual can receive any interpretation from the Holy Spirit contrary to the plain reading of the written text of Scripture, the doctrine of perspicuity. In fact the central meaning of the doctrine of the testimony of the Holy Spirit doesn’t have to do with the interpretation of Scripture. It has more to do with the acceptance of the message of God revealed in the Bible. The insights into thee meanings of passages by the Holy Spirit is merely an adjunct function of this procedure but will never contradict a plain reading of the text.

At this point perhaps it would be beneficial to briefly explain Calvin’s doctrine of the “testimony of the Holy Spirit” and how it developed. For the definitive formulation of the doctrine you can go to Calvin’s Institutes of the Christian Religion and for a condensed version B.B. Warfield’s “Calvin and Calvinism.” Step one is the view that as originally created in the image of God man had sufficient knowledge in his own being and the evidence from the natural world for knowledge of the existence and attributes of God. But because of his fall from sinlessness and it’s corruption upon his whole being man either rejects this knowledge or corrupts it, causing him to create false worship systems. So God in his gracious wisdom a special revelation by interacting with man throughout history and these actions and truths to be accurately recorded in what came to known as the Holy Scriptures, both the Old and New Testaments. However in man’s natural sinful condition, though he is able to investigate the Scriptures and read its text, determine whether it is historically accurate and even understand the plain reading of the passages given within, he is unable to accept these truths as the infallible words of God. It is at this point that the “testimony of the Holy Spirit” comes into play. The Spirit enters into the life of the person and allows thee man to accept the truths of Scripture in spite of his sinful nature.

The Holy Spirit may also allow a deeper insight into passages of Scripture (as stated in 1 Corinthians 2 for example) but this deeper meaning will not controvert the plain reading of the text. This leads to another misconception of Mr. Fales about the meaning of the perspicuity of Scripture and the discipline of hermeneutics. One of the most neglected disciplines taught today is hermeneutics or the method of proper interpretation. This is what leads to most of the variant and incorrect doctrines floating around the Christian community. They do not follow a proper or consistent method of examining a text and therefore render many readings of a passage contrary tot the intent of the author. The primary principles of hermeneutics are to first read the Bible as you would any other book. Though it purports to be a revelation from God, it was written by men using the common language, grammar and linguistics available to anyone at the time it was written. This may entail the study of the original language, customs and idiomatic usage of language to determine the original meaning of what the author was trying to say. It is neither proper nor fair to transfer modern assumptions and beliefs back into another culture and time to make thee passage say what you want it to. As with any other book that is claiming to be conveying actual events, it is given the benefit of the doubt until you can show errors or falsehoods so as to discredit it. Also with the study of the Bible you always interpret the Old Testament in light of the New Testament since the New is claiming to be the fulfillment of the Old. This is the methodology that is supported by all the reformed theologians from the very beginning of the movement to the present day.

This brings up another point Mr. Fales makes throughout this chapter. He states or implies that reformed epistemology is not interested in an investigation into the reliability and accuracy of the Scriptures. Throughout a reading of the above-mentioned theologians such a sentiment has not been found. Calvin for example spent a large amount of time and effort investigating the validity of which books were to be considered canonical. Though it is true that he took great import of the testimony of the tradition of the church, he did not take it for granted that everything they said was accurate. John Calvin was willing to investigate with all the tools available at the time. This tendency has continued in to the modern era. Dr. Robert Dick Wilson’s A Scientific Investigation of the Bible (part of which can be found here) is a prime example. He was professor of philology at Princeton Seminary in the early 20th century. He went through all the grammar and language of all the languages of the Middle East at the times indicated by the Old Testament and showed that in every case the language, idioms, names, places etc. . . . used by the Old Testament writers were exactly what would be expected for times that they were allegedly to have been written, not earlier and not later. There are many such examples of Reformed theologians going to extraordinary lengths to answer the critics of the Bible. Dr. Wilson’s Study of the Book of Daniel can be found here and Charles Hodge’s Systematic Theology can be found here. These are two that are readily available to all on the web. So Mr. Fales’ contention throughout this chapter that the reformers were and are not interested in a historical investigation is completely unfounded no matter whether Alvin Plantinga does or does not imply such. One begins to wonder with all of Mr. Fales misconceptions if perhaps he is also misinterpreting Mr. Plantinga.

Following from Mr. Fales assertion that the Reformation period was founded upon non-intellectual pursuits of the Bible is his apparent claim that real intellectual study during the Enlightenment period. The so-called period of Enlightenment was characterized by the philosophy that human reason was the ultimate standard by which everything was judged. If man could not discern something by his reason alone then it was not real. Since the supernatural could not be proven scientifically, it did not exist. The difference between the secular and theistic scholars was not the idea to use a “scientific historgraphical” method or even when studying the historical value of the Bible to use methods used on other texts. What was objected to from the very beginning was the a priori assumption of anti-supernaturalism that was brought to the Bible thus assigning it to the myth category before it was even studied. Mr. Fales states on page 470 that they did not hold to naturalism because they “assumed some sort of ontological or methodological naturalism” but because they had read people such as “Spinoza or Hume or Kant, and found in them arguments carrying conviction”. Mr. Fales may in fact be telling the truth here but does not mention that philosophers ranging from atheists to Christians have subsequently found their arguments to be circular in reasoning. People such as Von Hartmann, Feurbauch and C.S. Lewis have shown this to be the case, just to name a couple. Though on page 485 Mr. Fales states that their method is not based on a “tendentious naturalism but by a respect for common sense”, it is informative that he spends about 4 pages trying to refute the miraculous and the testimonies that go along with it. In spite of what Mr. Fales says this does indeed to be the lynch pin upon which his arguments stand. If There is no adequate reason given to reject the supernatural then there is no good reason to automatically place the Bible in the category of myth or legend and therefore should be investigated as the historical literature (e.g. Luke 1, Acts 26:26, 2 Peter 1:16, 2 Peter 2:3 and numerous places in the writings of Paul all appeal to events described as being seen by many) it purports to be and judged on its merits. So the question is does Mr. Fales adequately refute the possibility of the miraculous or the personal testimonies that report the events? We will examine these questions next.

On page 478 under the heading “Miracles” the terms are set down as to how this problem is going to be approached. The second paragraph states:

“It is helpful to divide up the question about miracles. If miracles are understood to be departures from the regular operations of nature, there are first the metaphysical questions to be faced: in what sense must miracles “violate” the laws of nature (if at all); and just how does God accomplish them? Second there are a number of epistemic issues. Can an instance of divine causation or intervention be scientifically investigated; can an event’s claim to reveal the hand of God be given strong scientific credentials? If not, can there be any other reason to credit divine intervention? And then Hume’s question: can the occurrence of a miracle be reasonably believed on the strength of testimony?”

As to the first point there are actually two classes of how the miraculous, or God, interact in the natural order. The first is that no violation or intervention of the naturally occurring laws needs to occur. God could use a naturally occurring event at just the right time and place to accomplish his purpose. The second way would be to intervene in the natural order and perhaps temporarily suspend the operation of nature to act within it to accomplish his goal. Unless it can be logically shown why the creator of a system and it’s laws cannot act contrary to those laws then there is no reason to think God cannot do this in our world order. Next he brings up thee question as to whether these events can be proven “scientifically”. Here again is an essential misunderstanding of the difference between scientific methodology and historical investigation. Since they are single occurrences and non-repeatable (as with all historical events) they cannot fall into the purely scientific category. Though it is possible that you can use scientific methods to help determine some aspects of a historical event, eventually it always falls on an eyewitness testimony, whether oral or written to determine a historical event. As in any reliance on testimony evidence the veracity of each individual character must be examined and mere rejected on the grounds that the event is outside normal experience. Mr. Fales attempts to deal with this in his section employing David Hume’s theory about the credibility of witness testimony. Two brief points about this. Hume in all of his writings never refuted miracles but merely tried to set up a definition that would necessitate against them. One of his main points rests on his assertion that the “uniform experience of mankind” denies the miraculous. This of course true only if you reject all of the reports of miraculous events as false and this you can only do of you already know the miraculous cannot occur. Thus you are arguing in a circle as aptly pointed out by C.S. Lewis in his book “Miracles”. The second point is that using Hume’s criteria for witnesses can set up a standard so impossible that it is possible to disprove virtually any historical event. This was done in a semi-humorous manner with Napoleon Bonaparte as can be seen in this article which can be found online.

In the end it all comes down to the veracity of a witness’s character and those of the New Testament writers cannot be easily tossed aside. Even Mr. Fales agrees with this, for on pages 481-482 he states:

I would insist that our principle of charity cannot be lightly overthrown in favor of an imputation of folly or fraud to the biblical authors. Far from it: giving due weight to the apparent intelligence, conviction, and sincerity of the NT writers counts strongly against either of those explanations.

So what then is his conclusion? It is that the writers of the New Testament did not intend accurate historical documents. To answer this point it has already been noted above that the writings of Luke, Peter and Paul all appeal to historical events that the various people they are talking about either saw or heard about. They claimed that they were not conveying myths or made up stories but events that actually occurred.

One last point is Mr. Fales’ contention that a problem theists must face with regards to miracles, if they occur, is “how” does God manage it (page 479). This however is a totally unrelated truth. It is possible to know something exists or that specific event occurred and not understand how it happened. For example it is possible to accept a computer exists without understanding how it works or was manufactured. A person can accept the universe does indeed exist without knowing how it came about. These are two totally separate questions.

In summary, Mr. Fales should have done one or two things differently with this chapter. First he should have either renamed it Alvin Plantinga’s Reformed Epistemology and Hermeneutics or he should have gone to the standard Reformed theologians to discuss Reformed epistemology and doctrines. His portrayal of the 15th and 16th century Reformed methodologies as pure mysticism is totally inaccurate as can be seen in John Calvin’s polemic against the Anabaptists use of mysticism in interpretation of Biblical doctrines that contradict the plain reading of the Scriptures. The second point is that if he is going to base much of his philosophy of the Bible on an anti-supernaturalism he needs to do a lot better job showing why we should not accept the possibility of a supernatural creator and his ability to work within our universe. Or if he cannot do that he needs to attack the credibility of the Bible by showing inaccuracies or contradictions that would destroy its credibility. Though does at one point mention contradictions in the Bible he does not give any examples so it is impossible to know what he is referring to? This seems to be just any polemic against Christianity full of misunderstandings and inaccuracies.