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Course 19 · Lesson 3.3

Catholic, Orthodox and Protestant responses to criticism

11 minute read

Lessons in this course

Course 19 outline

Module 1: The Secular Age: Humanism and Naturalism

  1. What secular, secularism and secularization mean
  2. Secular humanism: its claims and its moral vision
  3. Philosophical naturalism and its alternatives
  4. Christian responses to naturalism and humanism

Module 2: Science, Evolution and Faith

  1. Models of science and religion: conflict, independence, dialogue, integration
  2. What the theory of evolution claims and what it does not
  3. Christian positions on creation and evolution
  4. The history of the conflict story and its critics

Module 3: Criticism of the Bible

  1. The rise of historical and literary criticism
  2. What critics claim about authorship, sources and development
  3. Catholic, Orthodox and Protestant responses to criticism

Module 4: Truth, Relativism and Postmodernism

  1. What postmodernism is, and why the term is hard to define
  2. Truth, language and interpretation
  3. Moral relativism: descriptive, cultural and philosophical forms
  4. Christian responses to relativism and postmodern thought

Module 5: The Masters of Suspicion

  1. Marx on religion, ideology and economic life
  2. Nietzsche on Christianity, morality and the death of God
  3. Freud on religion as illusion
  4. The genetic fallacy, and when explaining the origin of a belief matters

Module 6: Power, Corruption and Morality

  1. Church, state and political power in history
  2. Institutional failure and abuse
  3. Critiques of Christian morality and how Christians reply
  4. Judging a faith by its failures: what follows and what does not

Module 7: Mind, Meaning and Nihilism

  1. Consciousness and the limits of materialism
  2. Meaning and purpose in secular and Christian thought
  3. Nihilism, despair and Christian hope

Module 8: Writing a Response

  1. Stating a challenge in its strongest form
  2. Building a structured response
  3. Conceding what is true in the critic’s case

All courses

Program / Course 19: Modern Challenges / Lesson 3.3

What you will learn

  • Describe how the Catholic, Orthodox and Protestant traditions have each responded to biblical criticism.
  • Explain the difference between inerrancy, infallibility and inspiration.
  • Describe the role of tradition and the church in interpretation.
  • Say what each response gains and what difficulty it faces.

The big idea

Each tradition has answered biblical criticism out of its own understanding of how God speaks through Scripture. Catholics place interpretation within the living tradition of the church and its teaching office. Orthodox Christians read Scripture inside the liturgy and with the Fathers. Protestants, who start from Scripture as the highest authority, have divided between those who accept the critical method with modifications and those who hold that the method undermines the Bible. Each response has strengths, and each faces objections.

Key terms

Inspiration
The teaching that God is the source of Scripture and that the human authors wrote under his guidance. Traditions differ on how.
Inerrancy
The teaching that Scripture is without error. It is defined in different ways. The Chicago Statement of 1978 says that it is without error in all that it affirms.
Infallibility
The teaching that Scripture, or the teaching office of the church, will not lead believers into error on matters of faith.
Sola scriptura
Latin for Scripture alone. The Reformation principle that Scripture is the final authority for doctrine, above church tradition.
Magisterium
The Catholic term for the church’s teaching authority, exercised by the pope and the bishops.
Holy Tradition
In Orthodox thought, the whole life of the church guided by the Spirit, including Scripture, the creeds, councils, the Fathers and worship.
Canonical approach
A method that reads each book as part of the whole canon, as the church has received it.

Background

The nineteenth century forced the churches to choose a stance. Catholic authorities, in the decree Lamentabili and the encyclical Pascendi of 1907, condemned what they called Modernism, which included certain uses of criticism. In the same period, many Protestants in Germany and Britain accepted the new approach, while American Presbyterians at Princeton, such as Warfield, defended inerrancy in the original manuscripts. Orthodox churches faced the question later, largely through encounters in Western universities.

The twentieth century brought a more open conversation. Catholics were encouraged in 1943 to use the tools, and Vatican II taught the principles of interpretation. Evangelicals developed careful scholarship at institutions that were committed to Scripture’s authority. Orthodox scholars wrote on the relation of critical study to patristic exegesis. The lines have also blurred, so that a Catholic, a Baptist and an Orthodox scholar might agree on a textual point and disagree on its theological significance.

Step-by-step explanation

Step 1: The Catholic response

The Council of Trent taught that Scripture and tradition both carry the gospel, and Vatican II in Dei Verbum taught that Scripture, tradition and the teaching office are linked, so that none stands without the others. Vatican II also taught that Scripture teaches without error the truth that God wished to put into the sacred writings for the sake of salvation. This statement has been read in different ways: some Catholics read it as limiting inerrancy to salvation matters, while others read it as saying that all that the authors assert is true.

In practice, Catholic scholars use critical methods freely under the guidance of the teaching office. Raymond Brown, Joseph Fitzmyer and Pope Benedict XVI, who wrote a work on Jesus of Nazareth, all engaged critical scholarship. The difficulty is where to draw the line when a conclusion appears to contradict a teaching, as in the early twentieth century debate on Moses.

Step 2: The Orthodox response

Orthodox theologians say that Scripture arose within the church and is rightly read within it. They look to the liturgy, in which most of Scripture is read in a yearly cycle, and to the Fathers, who read the Old Testament as pointing to Christ. They are generally comfortable with historical study as a servant, and wary when it replaces the church’s reading.

Orthodox writers such as Georges Florovsky called for a neo-patristic synthesis, a return to the Fathers that does not ignore modern questions. A difficulty is that Orthodox scholarship on critical questions is smaller than Catholic or Protestant scholarship, and the tradition has no central teaching office that settles disputed cases.

Step 3: The Protestant responses

Protestants divide broadly into three groups. Liberal Protestants accepted most critical results and reinterpreted doctrine, speaking of the Bible as the record of religious experience. Neo-orthodox thinkers such as Barth accepted criticism but held that the Bible becomes the Word of God when God speaks through it. Evangelical and conservative Protestants hold that Scripture is inspired and inerrant, and they use criticism critically, rejecting conclusions that rest on a denial of the supernatural.

The first group is accused of losing the Bible’s authority. The second is accused of making the Bible’s authority depend on an experience. The third is accused of defending a standard of inerrancy that the text itself does not set. Each of these charges is itself argued.

Step 4: What the traditions share

All three hold that Scripture is God’s word through human authors, that it is to be read with respect and that criticism is permitted so long as it serves understanding. They all hold that the final word does not come from academic opinion, since scholars change their minds. They also share a concern that interpretation be accountable, whether to the church, to the tradition or to the plain sense of the text.

Where they disagree is on who may decide when interpretations conflict. That is the old question of authority, which the course on the church addresses. For the student, the practical point is to know which tradition’s rules apply when someone says that the church teaches something about the Bible.

  1. Who has the authority to settle a disputed interpretation in this tradition?
  2. How does this tradition use critical scholarship, and what does it set aside?
  3. What is the best objection to the tradition’s approach?
  4. Where do the three traditions agree?
  5. Does the response explain the evidence, or only protect a doctrine?
  6. How would a member of another tradition state the difficulty?

Examples

A Catholic scholar

A Catholic professor studies the sources behind Luke and publishes a commentary. He submits to the Church’s teaching on the inspiration of Scripture and writes about the text as a historian. When asked how he combines the two, he says that the Church encourages him to understand what the human author meant. (A constructed example.)

An Orthodox reading

An Orthodox priest preaches on Isaiah 7:14 on the feast of the Annunciation. He cites the Hebrew word, the Greek translation and a Father’s comment. He is glad to speak of historical context, and he reads the text as a sign of Christ in the Church’s worship. (A constructed example.)

An evangelical scholar

A Protestant professor holds that Scripture is without error and also teaches textual criticism. He explains that errors of copying do not contradict inerrancy of the original, and that differences between the Gospels can be explained by different purposes. A student wonders whether the explanation always works. (A constructed example.)

Different perspectives

Catholic

Dei Verbum teaches that Scripture must be read in the same Spirit in which it was written, attending to the content and unity of the whole of Scripture, the living tradition of the church and the analogy of faith. The Catechism repeats it. Catholics see this as a safeguard that allows free study without losing the church’s reading.

Orthodox

Orthodox theologians such as John Breck and Theodore Stylianopoulos argue for a reading that honors historical study and the patristic understanding. They hold that the church, in worship and in the councils, knows the meaning of the Scriptures it has preserved. The Fathers are guides, not infallible on every detail.

Protestant

Reformed and Lutheran confessions teach that Scripture is the supreme rule, and that the Holy Spirit illumines the reader. Calvin held that the Spirit’s inner witness persuades the believer of Scripture’s divine origin. Protestants insist that no human authority is above the word, and for that reason critical work must itself be judged by Scripture.

Critical and secular views

Some secular scholars argue that any confessional commitment compromises scholarship, since conclusions are fixed beforehand. Others reply that every scholar brings commitments, and that the test is the quality of argument. Many biblical scholars work in departments where believers and non-believers cooperate.

Why it matters

A person who leaves one tradition for another, or leaves the church, often does so after meeting criticism in a form that no one prepared them for. Knowing that each tradition has thought about the matter, and has a way to hold study and faith together, gives a student a place to stand and a reason to keep reading.

Common misunderstandings

Misunderstanding: The Catholic Church forbids critical study of the Bible.

Correction: Since 1943 the Church has encouraged it, with the condition that interpreters respect the whole of Scripture and the living tradition.

Misunderstanding: Orthodox Christians do not read the Bible critically.

Correction: Some Orthodox scholars use historical methods fully, while holding that the church’s reading is the proper frame. Others are more cautious.

Misunderstanding: All Protestants hold the same view of biblical inerrancy.

Correction: Protestants hold a wide range, from strict inerrancy to views that treat Scripture as a witness to revelation.

Misunderstanding: Sola scriptura means that every believer may interpret as he likes.

Correction: Classical Protestant teaching holds that Scripture is the final authority, but that interpretation is guided by creeds, confessions and the church.

Knowledge check

What did Dei Verbum teach about interpreting Scripture?

It taught that interpreters should attend to the intention of the human authors and the literary forms of their time, and also read Scripture in the Spirit in which it was written, noting the unity of the whole, the living tradition of the church and the analogy of faith. It affirms that Scripture teaches without error the truth God wished for salvation.

How do Orthodox Christians understand the relation between Scripture and tradition?

They hold that Scripture arose within the church and is part of Holy Tradition, the whole life of the church guided by the Spirit, which includes the creeds, councils, Fathers and worship. Scripture is read in the liturgy and understood with the Fathers. Historical study is welcomed as a servant of that reading.

What is sola scriptura, and what is a common misunderstanding of it?

It is the Reformation principle that Scripture is the supreme authority for doctrine, above church tradition. A common misunderstanding is that it means each person may interpret as he pleases. Classical Protestant teaching holds that interpretation is guided by the creeds, confessions and the church, though Protestants dispute how strongly.

Name one difficulty faced by each of the three approaches.

Catholics must decide how to respond when a critical conclusion seems to conflict with church teaching. Orthodox scholars lack a central body to settle disputed cases, and have comparatively little critical scholarship. Protestants who hold strict inerrancy must explain differences between parallel passages, while those who do not are asked what grounds Scripture’s authority.

Think it through

  1. Which tradition’s way of combining study and faith is closest to your own, and what does it cost?
  2. What is the difference between a text being inspired and a text being free of error?
  3. Who in your life could help you when a critical claim troubles you?
  4. Which objection to your own tradition’s approach do you find hardest?

Independent assignment

Three answers to one question

In your notebook, pose the question: how should a believer respond to the claim that Isaiah was written by more than one author? Write 100 to 150 words for each of the Catholic, Orthodox and Protestant approaches, in terms its own members would accept, and then 150 words on your own view and its limits. Do not send it.

Further study