Interpretations May Vary
Augustine, Obscurity, and a Liberal Understanding of Scripture
There is a temptation among God’s people to think of Biblical interpretation as a kind of law, or binding force, particularly when the passage is obscure or difficult to comprehend. Pastors declare with great force, “I know what this text means regardless of what anyone else says.” No malice nor envy prompts these words; this idea is born out of a sense of urgency for those in the congregation. What will become of those fragile church members if these obscure sections of Scripture are not concrete? To understand God, mustn’t one think of the entirety of Scripture in a basic, ironclad kind of way? Such concerns are not, of course, new to the Body of Christ. In fact, even Saint Augustine wrestled with these ideas in his short treatise On Christian Teaching. Rather than shrinking back into a isolationist view, Augustine offered a persuasive argument for the openness of difficult portions of Scripture that every Christian ought to take seriously. Augustine advocates for a three-fold approach to handling these challenging texts (67-68). First, the reader must consult the rest of Scripture for illumination. Next, one must reason and employ the rules of logic. And third, the reader must know the various tropes, or figures of speech, which are commonplace in the ancient texts. If one employs these methods, and finds their interpretation to still hold, then that interpretation is to be considered a valid view.
What Augustine suggests is not to be confused with the emotive, spineless sort of reading that sometimes posits itself as a “liberal” view of Scripture. For Augustine’s view is not a method of adapting Scriptural teaching to the surrounding culture but begins with “the man who fears God” and who “seeks diligently in Holy Scripture for a knowledge of His will” (53). So, from the outset, the sort of liberal interpretation Augustine offers is anchored in an understanding of who God is and how that knowledge affects the reading of His Word. But the woman of God must grow into this view. It is not an inborn perspective; it is a way of reading that must be acquired. Only when someone
has become meek through piety, so as to have no love of strife; when furnished also with a knowledge of language, so as not to be stopped by unknown words and forms of speech, and with the knowledge of certain necessary objects, so as not to be ignorant of the force and nature of those which are used figuratively; and assisted, besides, by accuracy of in the texts, which has been secured by skill and care in the matter of correction;—when thus prepared, let him proceed to the examination and solution of the ambiguities of Scripture. (53)
Notice that for Augustine, study and preparation are central components to understand the difficult parts of the text, but this intellectual exercise is preceded by a spiritual development anchored in pious humility. Augustine’s willingness offers a way to reconcile competing views without resulting to a sort of turf war mentality.
But his view does not disallow argumentation. Even in this liberal view, where various understandings of the text may stand against one another, the option to persuade and bring someone over to a specific vantage point is a part of the study prescribed. Augustine explains, “for if a man be not moved by the force of truth, though it is demonstrated to his own confession, and clothed in beauty of style, nothing remains but to subdue him by the power of eloquence” (88).
For what more liberal and more fruitful provision could God have made in regard to the Sacred Scriptures than that the same words might be understood in several sense . . . ? (67)
Bibliography
Augustine. On Christian Teaching (On Christian Doctrine). Translated by J. F. Shaw. Overland Park, KS: Digireads.com Publishing, 2009.