Can Unregenerate Man
Understand the Bible?
The great Reformation
theologian John Calvin developed a theological system which has dominated much
of the conservative Christian world since the sixteenth century. Calvin’s
concern was to magnify God at man’s expense. He emphasized the sovereignty of
God, and would accept nothing that appeared to him to compromise that
sovereignty in any way.
Calvin believed that
unregenerate man could not think or do anything good, and therefore could make
no move toward God. God must first come to him, which he would do through the
Holy Spirit, who regenerates man and makes it possible for man to have faith
and live righteously. If man was to
understand the scriptures, he could do so only through the enlightenment of the
Holy Spirit. This is a logical conclusion, if we accept Calvin’s
presuppositions.
Calvinism teaches
that the Holy Spirit enters unregenerate man and operates directly upon him to
bring about his redemption. However, in the NT, the Spirit is promised to men
who believe in Christ, repent of their sins, and are baptized for the remission
of sins, in response to Christ’s death for our sins (Ac 2:38-39).
The Calvinistic view
is that man cannot understand the scriptures without the intervention of the
Spirit. Paul says,
“We have not received
the spirit of the world but the Spirit who is from God, that we may understand
what God has freely given us. This is what we speak, not in words taught us by
human wisdom but in words taught by the Spirit, expressing spiritual truths in
spiritual words. The man without the Spirit does not accept the things that
come from the Spirit of God, for they are foolishness to him, and he cannot
understand them, because they ae spiritually discerned” (1Co 2:12-14)
Calvinism says unregenerate
man is incapable of understanding the word of God until the Spirit operates
directly on him, and enlightens him. It is true that the man without the Spirit
cannot fully understand God’s will, but it is because he has a different set of
values, and as long as he lives by those worldly values, the messages of the
Spirit are foolishness to him. Here we see the difference between understanding
intellectually (the demons “believe and tremble”), and accepting, trusting,
believing—which means an understanding that goes beyond the intellectual, and
changes lives.
The Bible was written
at the direction of the Holy Spirit. If it is not understandable, and we need
the Spirit’s illumination to make the meaning clear, may we not also need
an interpreter for the Spirit’s illumination? And so on, ad infinitum.
Contrary to Calvin’s
view, we believe unregenerate man is capable of understanding God’s word in
human language. There is no difference in language, whether the subject is biblical
or secular. If a person is capable of reading and understanding a science
textbook, or a history book, what is there to prevent him from understanding a
biblical text? After all, a science textbook tells us about God’s creation, and
a history book tells us what God has done in human affairs. Since the Bible is
God’s message in human language, inspired by God, it should be easier, not more
difficult or impossible, to understand.
If a man cannot understand
the scripture without the Spirit’s intervention, how would Israel understand the
OT scriptures? It they could not, why were the Scriptures given in the first place?
If they could, then we can too, so we conclude that the scripture can be
understood without the direct operation of the Spirit. (Hal Hougey, The
Quest for Understandable Hermeneutics [Concord, Calif.: Manna, 1997], 256-58)