Monday, March 20, 2023

Casey J. Chalk on the Perspicuity of Scripture and Essential Doctrines

Addressing the perspicuity of the Bible, John MacArthur wrote:

 

I want to speak to you about the clarity of Scripture. If we’re going to suggest – and we will – that the Scripture is clear on many doctrines, in fact, on all doctrines, then we have to establish that the Scripture in itself is clear. Just looking at that statement, “The commandment of the Lord is clear, enlightening the eyes,” the word “commandment” is a word not seen before in the Psalms. It is often used in the book of Deuteronomy, and it is used repeatedly in Psalm 119. It points to the whole revelation of God.

 

So the whole revelation of the Lord is clear. That is a word that means radiant, bright. Scripture is clear as to what we must believe. Scripture is clear as to whom we are to believe and in whom we are to believe. Scripture is clear as to what we must do. Scripture is clear as to what we must avoid. Scripture is clear as to what we must fear, what we must worship, what we must hope for. It is a clear revelation, and therefore it enlightens the eyes. It removes all doubts, misconceptions, prejudices, and lies. (John MacArthur, “How to Shine Clear light of Scripture,” March 4, 2020)

 

In his The Obscurity of Scripture, Chalk noted that:

 

The ”ordinary means” required to determine those necessary salvific doctrines have been interpreted differently by various Reformed thinkers. Turretin labeled the “ordinary means” as such as, “the inner light of the Spirit, the attention of the mind, the voice and ministry of the church, lectures and commentaries, prayers and vigils.” (Institutes of Elenctic Theology, q. 17, no. 6) Contemporary Reformed theologian Robert L. Reymond (1932-2013), in contrast defines them as “simply the reading, hearing, and study of the Word. . . . One does not need to be instructed by a preacher to learn that he must believe in Jesus in order to be saved from the penalty his sins deserve.” (A New Systematic Theology of the Christian Faith, 2nd ed. [Nashville: Thomas Nelson, 1998], 87-88). (Casey J. Chalk, The Obscurity of Scripture: Disputing Sola Scriptura and the Protestant Notion of Biblical Perspicuity [Steubenville, Ohio: Emmaus Road Publishing, 2023], 29-30)

 

Elsewhere, Chalk noted that:

 

another problem for the doctrine of perspicuity. When Protestants disagree over the interpretation of Scripture, they often reorganize themselves into a new ecclesia or theological group of like-minded individuals who share their particular interpretive understanding. Even intra-Protestant organizations, including that which authorized The Chicago Statement on Biblical Inerrancy, formulated by more than two hundred Evangelical leaders at a 1978 conference, excluded and censured liberal Protestantism and its adherents. The same can be said for The Gospel Coalition, a fellowship of Evangelical churches in the Reformed tradition founded in 2005, that criticizes strands of Evangelicalism that are “diminishing the church’s life and leading us away form our historic beliefs and practices.” Whatever the enemy within Protestantism—liberalism, the emergent church, the prosperity gospel—other Protestants can organize themselves in opposition to that threat and affirm what they believe to be the authentic, clear witness of Holy Scripture.

 

Such communities, however noble their intentions, are inherently ad hoc. By excluding certain groups of individuals who disagree with their interpretation of the Bible, Protestants can maintain a veneer of unity regarding the “clear” understanding of Scripture. William Whitaker could, for example, in his defense of perspicuity assert:

 

I say that there is the utmost unanimity amongst the Confessionists (as they call them) in all things necessary, that is, in the articles of faith, and especially concerning justification; although perhaps there may be some dissension amongst them about smaller matters, as the explication of some rather obscure place; which proves not the obscurity of scripture, but our slowness and inconstancy. (Whitaker, Disputation on Holy Scripture, 380).

 

Of course, in order to make a claim to unanimity, Whitaker necessarily excluded many other seventeenth-century Protestants who disagreed with him. Yet simply eliminating threats to our confidence in the Bible’s clear teachings by excluding those with whom we disagree is a case of special pleading, meaning deliberately ignoring things that are unfavorable to our point of view.

 

The perspicuity of Scripture cannot be demonstrated or confirmed by creating an ad hoc interpretive “consensus” of like-minded Protestants. Traditionalist Methodists or conservative Presbyterians cannot declare Scripture clear on certain teachings simply by finding like-minded fellow-travelers re-drawing the boundaries of their ecclesial organisms to exclude progressive Methodists or liberal Presbyterians. To again cite Bryan Cross’s analogy, this is simply to draw a target around one’s interpretive arrow and call this exegetical uniformity. (Casey J. Chalk, The Obscurity of Scripture: Disputing Sola Scriptura and the Protestant Notion of Biblical Perspicuity [Steubenville, Ohio: Emmaus Road Publishing, 2023], 94-95, emphasis added)

 

Further Reading:

 

Not By Scripture Alone: A Latter-day Saint Refutation of Sola Scriptura