by Charles Hedrick

In late June 1989, Charles Hedrick — the moderator of soc.religion.christian at Rutgers University — posted this essay to the group he ran. The occasion was a thread on Anglican theological method; the result was something more: a careful, personal account of how Scripture, Tradition, and Reason actually function together, and why the famous "three-legged stool" metaphor does not quite capture the relationship.

Hedrick was a New Testament scholar by training, Protestant by conviction, and ecumenical by temperament. He had been moderating soc.religion.christian since its founding, shepherding Catholic, Protestant, Orthodox, and skeptical voices through serious theological argument on a medium few people had imagined could sustain such conversation. These posts are among the first works of sustained theological reflection produced on the internet.

His argument here is structural: Scripture, Tradition, and Reason are not three equal supports of equal function. Reason and Tradition are instruments for appropriating the revelation lodged in Scripture — not independent sources of revelation themselves. And underneath everything, Hedrick insists, is a fourth element that no geometric metaphor captures: the Holy Spirit, without whose guidance Scripture is encountered as document rather than as living word.

I've been thinking about the three-legged stool. I'm sympathetic with what I see as the goal of Anglican theory, namely to avoid extremes of both Protestant and Catholic interpretation. But the analogy doesn't quite do it for me. I have two problems. First, it implies more parallelism between Scripture, tradition, and reason than I see. Rather than three legs, I see them as maybe a leg, an arm, and a seat. (No, I'm not going to say which is which.) Second, I think maybe there should be a fourth: the Holy Spirit. Expanding on this a bit: I agree that Scripture, tradition, and reason all have a part to play. However of these, I see only Scripture as being a real source of revelation. I go back to the concept of Christianity as a revealed religion. It is based on God's interventions in history. The Bible is an account of those events and of the teachings that surrounded them. (I'm thinking mostly of the NT. The OT follows this paradigm to some extent, but there is perhaps a wider variety of literature there.) Tradition and reason are for me not independent sources of revelation, but means used to appropriate what we see in the Bible. There's no way to inject the Bible directly into my brain. I have to use my understanding — both deductive and intuitive. So reason is involved in appropriating the revelation that is present in the Bible. So is tradition, though in a different way. Under tradition I would include both scholarly investigations and other results that come out of the life of the church. These provide a check on my own reason: both informing it and allowing me to correct it. So my model is that I gain knowledge of Christ from the revelation reported in the Bible, which I appropriate using my reason, with the aid of tradition. To this formula I must insist on adding one more qualifier: under the guidance of the Holy Spirit. That is because I think the purpose of Scripture is at least as much existential as intellectual. That is, we use it not just to learn about God, but to encounter him. The Reformers emphasized that Scripture doesn't fulfill its role unless it is read in faith under the influence of the Spirit.

The Canon

I think the most serious attack on the primacy of Scripture is the argument that the authority of Scripture basically comes from the Church because the Church decided what books were to be considered Scripture. My answer to that is something that many conservative Protestants may not be happy with. It is that I see the basic authority as being not the book in itself but what we encounter in it, both intellectually and experientially. This includes both events, such as Christ's life, death and resurrection, and teachings sent directly by God, including God's message revealed to the prophets and Jesus' teachings. To me the Bible is important because it gives us access to those events and teachings. Indeed in the first century, tradition would have been a real source of such an encounter. When first or second generation Christians were around, hearing about Jesus from them would have been at least as good as hearing about him through a book. But we are now many generations away, and the written material is our only primary source. I am frankly not all that concerned about deciding which books are in the Bible. As far as I can tell, the books that were in dispute would not have affected our picture of the events in the Bible noticeably one way or the other. If Jude and II Peter hadn't made it, does anybody seriously think this would seriously affect the Christian faith? As most readers here know, I don't believe in Biblical inerrancy. I believe that the Gospels are competent history, judged by first-century categories of historical accuracy. But I still believe they should be evaluated by the same criteria we would evaluate any other historical reports. This means that I don't have to draw quite the clear, black and white line that some do between what is and what isn't Scripture. On the other hand, I have looked at a reasonable sample of the documents that aren't in Scripture, and I certainly haven't seen anything that looks like it should be in the NT. About the OT Apocrypha I just don't see a big deal. I see it as similar to Jude. There are advantages each way. But it's hard to see that much damage is done whether it is included or excluded. Certainly the heart of the revelation to Israel is elsewhere.

Does Scripture Interpret Itself?

The Catholic claim is that Scripture needs interpretation, and that the Church is the authorized interpreter. Protestant claims are that Scripture interprets itself, when read prayerfully through the Holy Spirit. Thus an authoritative interpreter is not needed. I'm still not sure whether I think the Reformers were being overly optimistic here. There is one sense in which I am convinced they are right. The Bible is a powerful book. I believe that anyone who prayerfully reads it will be confronted by the Gospel and by God's power to save them. They may come away with naive views about a number of subjects, but the basic themes needed for salvation are quite clear. I think it's very important to preserve this concept, and to encourage people to read it themselves and react to it directly.

The question is how far to push that. Does sola scriptura mean that everybody should be able to read the Bible, and regardless of their education and other background they'll all come away with the same interpretation of everything in it? I can't believe that's what was meant. There is — and even in the sixteenth century was — too much evidence to the contrary. I don't think sola scriptura is about not needing assistance. Rather it's about encouraging people to grapple with Scripture directly. There's no problem with the Church providing education, and help in understanding the Bible. As long as each person still encounters the Bible for himself, help is always appreciated. It is when the Church tries to take the place of that encounter, or dictates its results, that we have problems.

There is a cost to this. Perhaps the Reformers didn't realize what the cost was, since the experiment was new to them. But now we know. If we give up the concept of authoritative interpretation, we are going to have disorder. People are going to disagree. I believe this is a cost that is worth paying. I would rather have lots of groups who have encountered God in the Scripture and who believe they are being led by the Spirit in different directions than a group who all hold correct views but have given up the direct encounter. I'm inclined to think that sola scriptura should be taken more as an existential statement than an intellectual one. It's not that people don't need help in an intellectual sense to understand it, but that in their faith there should be nothing between them and the Scripture.

Colophon

Written by Charles Hedrick, moderator of soc.religion.christian, Rutgers University. Posted to soc.religion.christian on June 28, 1989.

Preserved from the Usenet archive for the Good Work Library by the New Tianmu Anglican Church, 2026. Original Message-ID: [email protected].

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