by Patrick Schreiner
At the beginning of February, I traveled to Louisville to participate in a disputation on hermeneutics with Dr. Jim Hamilton and Dr. Mitchell Chase at the Kenwood Institute. The debate centered on the question, “What is the best way to interpret the Scriptures?” Or to put it in the form of our test case, “What is the sense(s) of Genesis 22?”
I represented what could be called the “retrievalist” position, advocating for a recovery of the four senses of Scripture. Mitch Chase was somewhat in the middle, arguing for what I would call a “canonical” reading. Jim Hamilton was the “literalist,” contending that all we saw could be found in the literal sense and Moses’s authorial intention.
The video has now been released (click here to watch). I thought it would be helpful for me to write down some summative thoughts after our evening together. I will begin by noting points of agreement, then differences, some clarifications on my position, and conclude with a pastoral and academic plea.
Broad Agreement
What struck me about the evening was how similar we are in how we approach the text. The debate probably would have been more exciting if we had people who differed more with one another. In the end, we largely agreed on how to interpret Genesis 22, even if we arrived there by slightly different routes. Most of our debate was probably more about semantics than substance, though there may still be some differences worth exploring.
I deeply appreciated both Mitch and Jim’s approach to Scripture. Mitch emphasized meaning as “thick” and proposed that we have to read across the canon to get the full meaning of any text. He argued that sometimes the biblical authors were fully aware of what they were predicting, and other times things were more obscure to them. Jim’s careful work in the literal sense was exemplary. He was right to note that we don’t often give the Old Testament authors enough credit for their predictive intentionality.
In summary, we all agreed on the foundational commitments: the authority, inerrancy, and inspiration of Scripture. We also all affirmed the priority of the literal sense, even though we defined it somewhat differently. And maybe most importantly, we all saw Genesis 22 in a very similar light.
Nuanced Disagreement
Though there were many commonalities between us, there were also some differences. In reflecting on the evening, I identified at least four. First, we debated the nature of typology and allegory and what term best represents what the biblical authors were doing. Mitch has written that both are legitimate, but they are distinct. Jim thinks it is best to stick with typology, and I think typology and allegory are largely synonymous, and I am advocating for a recovery of the term allegory.
Second, Jim and I differed on whether the spiritual senses should fall under the literal sense or whether we should distinguish between them. He consistently argued that what I was saying is found in the literal sense, while I argued that it could never be divorced from the literal sense, but it was a slightly different exegetical move.
Third, we spent a good amount of time debating how much we can attribute to the epistemic horizon of the human author. In other words, do we always need to support our exegetical points with the argument that the human author consciously understood what they were pointing to? This is especially relevant in the Old Testament when they predicted or foreshadowed Christ.
My Positions
Both Mitch and Jim made good cases for their position, but in this section, I will detail my arguments. First, regarding allegory, Jim pressed me on whether the term can be “rescued” with all the baggage associated with it. Admittedly, it has been the scorn of grammatical- historical exegetes for a long time. However, we regularly recover terms that have been cast aside or defined in different ways. My most important argument for recovering it is that Paul uses it (Gal 4:24)! It might also help us read the Christian tradition better who had an affinity for the term. Though we have defined allegory as non-historical and importing a foreign philosophical grid on the text, that is not the way Paul employs it and we should follow him. Even though I defended recovering the term, I care more about the substance of what Paul does than what we call it. There is a danger in getting caught up in a “war of words” that never actually gets to the substance.
Second, regarding the relation of literal sense to the spiritual senses, I’m trying to carve a nuanced position. I argue that the spiritual senses are distinct from but not separated from the literal sense. The spiritual senses are the fuller literal sense and are found within the literal sense. This protects them from being divorced from the literal sense, while also preventing the literal sense from becoming so expansive that it loses definition. We can either choose not to make enough distinctions or make too many of them. Most are choosing the first path; I think there is some value in asserting soft but real distinctions and think I can back this up biblically.
Third, regarding authorial intention, I’m not persuaded that God’s self-communicative intentions can be reduced to the epistemic horizons of the human authors. Certainly, sometimes they were aware of what they were predicting (Acts 2:31), but I’m not sure this is always the case (1 Pet 1:10–12). An imperfect analogy of this reality can be found in C. S. Lewis’s book The Silver Chair. At the end of the book the travelers are telling the Prince, who is under a spell, that Aslan told them to follow the writing which said, “Under Me.” They followed this writing to the underground city.
However, the Prince laughs, saying they were deceived for that was not the intention of these words. These words are all that is left of a longer script, which said: “Though under earth and throneless now I be. Yet, while I lived, all earth was under me.” However, Puddleglum replies.
Don’t you mind. There are no accidents. Our guide is Aslan; and he was there when the giant king caused the letters to be cut, and he knew already all things that would come of them; including this.
The point is that there are times when God sovereignly intends more than the human author. John Piper, in his book Reading the Bible Supernaturally, says, “So, can the human author intend things of which he is not conscious at the moment? The answer is yes.”
Pastoral and Academic Plea
My goal in participating in this disputation was to clarify what I’m proposing. I recognize not everyone is excited about what I’m doing. There is some concern because of how the Reformers responded to the four senses of Scripture. However, even here, we must do good historical work. There is more diversity amongst the Reformers on this issue than some acknowledge.
Additionally, I’m not proposing that we follow the four senses exactly as it was practiced in the past. Retrieval, in its best form, is not a slavish copying of the past in rigid conformity. I’m not necessarily arguing we should employ the four senses exactly like it was done before but learn from their mistakes.
