The Bible Made Impossible

Smith, Christian. The Bible Made Impossible: Why Biblicism is not a Truly Evangelical Reading of Scripture. Grand Rapids, Mich.: Brazos, 2011. 220 pp. $22.99.

In the ongoing conversation regarding the use and meaning of the Bible, Smith offers a unique and challenging first offering. The gist of Smith’s work is evident in its title – Smith believes and attempts to demonstrate that Biblicism (as Smith defines it) is not truly “good news”. Specifically, Smith seeks to demonstrate that the core tenets of Biblicism are rendered irrelevant by the outcome(s) of Biblicism. Not content with deconstruction only, Smith finishes his work by presenting some alternatives to Biblicism.

Upon first picking up Smith’s volume, it is hard not to conclude immediately that it is destined to fail. No matter how articulate, cogent, or poignant Smith’s work may be, one can be sure that it will not be taken seriously by conservative evangelicals. At this juncture, conservative evangelicals have set up inerrancy as the primary fence between those “in” and those “out”. Coupled with the reductionistic binary “good guys and bad guys” paradigm that shapes much of American thought, this shibboleth hinders the conservative mind from taking Smith seriously. Recent early reviews already demonstrate this tendency. Nearly every reviewer has tried to understand Smith as being against inerrancy (despite Smith’s explicit claim that he is not doing so on page 176). This is a shame, because Smith has a few good things to say. One must exercise care to take opposing viewpoints seriously without falling into the equal and opposite errors of rejecting God’s Word and uncritical self-congratulation. Ironically, Smith recognizes the sociological constructs that result in some failing to come to terms with or adequately think through various concerns, and yet Smith himself does not in any way try to mitigate these factors in the style of his work.

What Smith is Saying

What Smith is essentially saying has several parts. His thesis is that Biblicism is unsustainable because the way in which it works out in practice is contradicted by what it says in theory. This is contingent upon Smith’s definition of Biblicism, which has nine markers that converge to form a tenth, defining, marker. Smith also explores some ideas about language, authority, and theology in order to provide some alternatives to Biblicism. Smith’s great contribution to the conversation here is in the term “pervasive interpretive pluralism” (17). Pervasive interpretive pluralism is a descriptive term that encompasses the vast differences between evangelicals who claim to hold the same beliefs about how Scripture works and yet disagree strongly on the meaning of Scripture. Smith warns against mitigating these differences, and he is correct in noting that these are by no means “surface level” differences (22). They are real, and deep, and meaningful. Smith is right to believe that these differences demand that we look at our theory of the Bible.

The Ten Marks

Any logical analysis of PIP must take into account the ten marks upon which it is built. The ten marks are listed verbatim with descriptions below. This kind of block quote is unusual in a review, but it is essential for further discussion:

1.     Divine writing

a.     The Bible, down to the details of its words, consists of and is identical with God’s very own words written inerrantly in human language.

2.     Total representation

a.     The Bible represents the totality of God’s communication to and will for humanity, both in containing all that God has to say to humans and in being the exclusive mode of God’s true communication.

3.     Complete coverage

a.     The divine will about all of the issues relevant to Christian belief and life are contained in the Bible.

4.     Democratic perspicuity

a.     Any reasonably intelligent person can read the Bible in his or her own language and correctly understand the plain meaning of the text.

5.     Common sense hermeneutics

a.     The best way to understand Biblical texts is by reading them in their explicit, plain, most obvious, literal sense, as the author intended them at face value, which may or may not involve taking into account their literary, cultural, and historical contexts.

6.     Solo scriptura

a.     The significance of any given biblical text can be understood without reliance on creeds, confessions, historical church traditions, or other forms of larger theological hermeneutical frameworks, such that theological formulations can be built up directly out of the Bible from scratch.

7.     Internal harmony

a.     All related passages of the Bible on any subject fit together almost like puzzle pieces into a single, unified, internally consistent body of instruction about right and wrong beliefs and behaviors.

8.     Universal applicability

a.     What the biblical authors taught God’s people at any point in history remains universally valid for all Christians at every other time, unless explicitly revoked by subsequent Biblical teaching.

9.     Inductive method

a.     All matters of Christian belief and practice can be learned by sitting down with the Bible and piecing together through careful study the clear “biblical” truths it teaches.

These nine converge to generate the tenth mark which is:

10.  Handbook model

a.     The Bible teaches doctrines and morals with every affirmation that it makes, so that together those affirmations comprise something like a handbook or textbook for Christian belief and living, a compendium of divine and therefore inerrant teachings on a full array of subjects – including science, economics, health, politics, and romance.

Smith makes it clear that one can vary on the strength and number with which one holds to the first nine propositions; it is the tenth proposition which constitutes an “impossible” reading of the Bible. The handbook model is rendered irrelevant as a theory of reading the Bible by the great number of divergent doctrines and practices within the evangelical churches which hold to it. Smith calls this phenomenon pervasive interpretive pluralism. For those who might be tempted to sweep these differences under the rug, Smith overviews the dramatic differences between different sects of “Biblicist” Christianity – including differences regarding salvation, baptism, sacraments, eschatology, and social interaction.

A Logical Analysis of PIP

The logic of PIP is undeniable. Given the vast disparity among “Biblicist” Christian groups, one can only conclude that the “handbook” model presented by Smith is irrelevant. The Bible may indeed be a “compendium of divine and therefore inerrant teachings on a full array of subjects”, but no one and everyone seems to be able to articulate what those teachings are.

A Logical Analysis of the Ten Marks

All of this so far is very neat and tidy – perhaps a bit too so. Reading through Smith’s ten marks, one is immediately struck by the wording. These propositions all begin with propositions that Biblicists accept and take them too far. Consider the seventh proposition: Internal Harmony - All related passages of the Bible on any subject fit together almost like puzzle pieces into a single, unified, internally consistent body of instruction about right and wrong beliefs and behaviors. In truth, it is hard to imagine any evangelical scholar who would agree with this statement. Upon this author’s bookshelf is a section on hermeneutics and Biblical interpretation, replete with Ryken, Treier, VanHoozer, Carson, Silva, Kaiser, Plummer, and Poythress. They would all agree that Scripture is harmonious, but it is hard to imagine that Smith’s definition of internal harmony is in any way congruous with what any of them write or think or teach. Perhaps the most egregious mark is the tenth, with which no evangelical scholar seems to agree and which many of the most conservative “Biblicists” have strongly denied. One could go through all ten marks and come to the conclusion that none of them, as defined by Smith, have got any support among evangelical scholars.

This problem of inaccurate descriptors is oddly mirrored in another problem with Smith’s ten marks. Apart from the descriptions that Smith provides, it is impossible to find any Christian writer anywhere that does not agree with at least some of Smith’s points. Even Smith’s final point has some truth in it – certainly there are portions of Scripture which are clearly intended to instruct the reader in how to live, including portions of Proverbs which include Divine wisdom on finances, learning, and human relationships. This phenomenon begs the question – at what point does one stop being a Biblicist? While Smith defines Biblicism carefully (to the exclusion of actual evangelical scholars, as noted above), he doesn’t actually explain how one could be considered not a Biblicist. By Smith’s definition it would seem that everyone and no one is a Biblicist (as a case study, the reader may find it interesting to read the works of N.T. Wright, for example, and see whether he be as much a Biblicist as John Piper. This author conducted such a study, and found that under Smith’s rubric, both are equally culpable).

These observations bring to the fore one of the most egregious errors in Smith’s work. Smith fundamentally fails to engage actual evangelical scholarship on the issue of the Bible and its interpretation. However, it would be unfair at this point to accuse Smith of writing an inaccurate or subversive work. Rather, one must read carefully to determine the extent of Smith’s experience and knowledge, and gauge what exactly Smith is reacting against.

Smith’s Paradigm

It would probably help here to note some of the things that set Smith apart as he engages in this project. First, he deconstructs the false dichotomy that sees liberalism and Biblicism as the only two options for American evangelicalism. This is probably a self-evident observation for any student of Christian history, but it is important to Smith because he denounces theological liberalism in strong and unmistakable tones. In the introduction Smith makes clear, “I view the program of liberalism as an unworthy corrosion of historically orthodox, evangelical…Christianity. I would go so far as to agree with J. Gresham Machen that theological liberalism is not one particular branch of Christianity; it is rather a very different religion from Christianity.” This annotation is important, because Smith’s purpose is not to promote liberalism as an alternative to Biblicism, but rather to critically evaluate Biblicism on its own grounds. Furthermore, Smith has a deep commitment to the gospel. Smith consistently points to the gospel of Christ, which he believes is obscured by Biblicist dogma. It is in this concern that Smith writes. I think some of the most revealing words that Smith writes is a brief paragraph about young, mostly bucolic, students arriving at university fresh from a rural Baptist or Methodist church and having their faith shattered when they find that it can’t hold up to the scrutiny it is suddenly subjected to. I suspect that this experience has been a major driving force behind Smith’s book.

All this to say that despite Smith’s credentials and intelligent writing style, his book isn’t actually an academic work at all. It is rather aimed squarely at pop-evangelicalism and the “me and my Bible” crowd that seems to produce more books than all the rest of Christianity combined (see, for example, Smith’s list of books and bumper stickers on pages 7 through 10). This is complicated by the fact that Smith doesn’t seem to realize that this is, in fact, his audience. He spends several pages demonstrating how major institutions and documents of American Evangelicalism ascribe to the ten marks of Biblicism, but he commits one major error in this section. When Smith examines relevant evangelical documents to support his ten points, he smuggles his own presuppositions into interpreting them.

There is no polite way to put it, but a logical analysis of Smith’s marks reveals that they are manufactured by Smith in order to support his thesis. There is no real evidence for these definitions among serious evangelical thinkers. This becomes quite stark when one considers the examples that Smith cites. For example, when the BFM2000 says, “All Scripture is totally true and trustworthy. It reveals the principles by which God judges us, and therefore is, and will remain to the end of the world, the true center of Christian union, and the supreme standard by which all human conduct, creeds, and religious opinions should be tried” Smith interprets this as proof of point eight – “What the biblical authors taught God’s people at any point in history remains universally valid for all Christians at every other time, unless explicitly revoked by subsequent Biblical teaching.” Frankly, one is hard pressed to see how the BFM’s statement can be shoehorned into the remarkably un-nuanced claim of Smith’s eighth mark. It simply cannot fit. Smith commits the same error in examining a statement by Westminster Seminary’s board. “We deny that the Holy Scripture lacks doctrinal unity on any point of doctrine, or that it does not always agree with itself. We affirm that the Holy Scripture is harmonious in all its teachings.” Smith interprets this as an affirmation of point 7 “Internal harmony”, but the way in which Westminster holds this idea is nothing like Smith’s rendering in point 7. One look through Poythress’ “Symphonic Theology” is sufficient to dispel Smith’s interpretation. A “harmonious” Scripture cannot be conflated with a “melodious” Scripture. Not all doctrinal passages sing the same notes, but they do all sing the same tune.

The Effect Upon PIP

The argument structure of Smith’s book is such that if the ten marks fall, so does the case for PIP rendering Biblicism irrelevant. Having concluded that the ten marks are insufficient, the rest of the argument crumbles. For this reason it is hard for the thinking analyst to conclude that Smith has written a persuasive or cogent work.

Strengths and Weaknesses

Perhaps not surprisingly, given the title, the greatest failure of Smith’s work is rhetorical. He constantly quotes Enns and Sparks as positive influences upon a Christian view of the Bible, when the current evangelical consensus is clearly against them both. On the other hand, he condemns popular evangelical teachers like John MacAurther (7). In his “more evangelical way forward” Smith quotes approvingly of Barth, a move which is essentially neutral. Nevertheless, given his previous examples, this is a rhetorical fail, as Smith could have chosen much more accepted authors to make the same point. These rhetorical blunders incline the reader to interpret Smith’s work as being essentially against inerrancy (Sparks, for example, has written a work specifically decrying inerrancy in highly polemical terms). One cannot prove that this is Smith’s intention, and Smith himself denies it, but his lack of persuasive strategy has certainly hurt his ability to communicate. The other great weakness of Smith’s work is its irrelevance. By failing to engage the scholarly work of evangelicals, Smith has almost certainly created a book that will only serve to reinforce the beliefs of those who already agree with Smith.

However, the book is not without merit. The idea of Pervasive Interpretive Pluralism allows us to examine our relationship with the Word and with other evangelicals and see if perhaps our differences are rooted in unhealthy sources. Smith’s polemic against “bumper sticker Christianity” is also certainly helpful and poignant. Finally, Smith is helpful in allowing us to examine our presuppositions about the Bible and cement our positions, commitments, and presuppositions.