An Analysis of David Kelsey's The Uses of Scripture in Recent Theology in Light of the Eleventh Thesis of Carl F. Henry's God, Revelation and Authority

     Part I of Kelsey's book sets out to demonstrate these theses through the use of case studies involving seven "quite diverse Protestant theologians" (Karl Barth, Hans-Werner Bartsch, Rudolph Bultmann, L.S. Thornton, Paul Tillich, B.B. Warfield, and G.E. Wright), all of whom make their theological proposals "'on the basis of' particular biblical writings". Kelsey runs each theologian's proposal through a grid of four questions aimed at discerning the use of scripture in each: 1) What aspect(s) of scripture is (are) taken to be authoritative?; 2) What is it about this aspect of scripture that makes it authoritative?; 3) What sort of logical force is ascribed to the scripture to which appeal is made?; and 4) How is the scripture that is cited brought to bear on theological proposals so as to authorize them? Kelsey sees each of the theologians as engaged in applying scripture as a means of defending their own positions, and therefore defines theology as arguments for particular theological positions which the theologian feels are necessary to elaborate or defend based on his experience within the common life of the church.

In brief, Kelsey finds that none of the theologians actually "appeal to some objective text-in-itself but rather to a text construed as a certain kind of whole having a certain kind of logical force" (Uses, 14). In other words, each theologian construes or interprets the biblical text as playing some role through which the text becomes authoritative for the particular theological argument. Each theologian, therefore, construes the text as authority in his own configuration. Warfield and Bartsch emphasize what Scripture teaches, the former the doctrinal content of the Bible, the latter its concepts or main ideas; Wright and Barth stress, instead, what Scripture reports, the former its recital of God's mighty historical acts, the latter its rendering of God's personal presence; Thornton, Tillich and Bultmann invoke images, symbols or myths that provide the occasion for a revelatory redemptive event. (Uses, chs. 2-4; GRA, 3.84)

Based on his findings from the case studies, Kelsey concludes that "scripture" taken as "authority" for any particular theological position is best understood as a functional relationship determined by the theologian between theology and texts "taken as scripture", whereby "the expression 'Scripture is authoritative for theology'... does not so much offer a descriptive claim about a set of texts and one of its peculiar properties; rather, [it refers to the theologians commitment] to a certain kind of activity in the course of which these texts are going to be used in certain ways" (Uses, 89). On the door to subjectivity which Kelsey here opens Henry remarks, "[The functional approach] elevates Scripture's function in the life of the community of faith to a priority that pushes the objective truth of prophetic-apostolic teaching to the margin and then dismisses it" (GRA, IV.472) Indeed, texts are to be taken by the theologian as "scripture" in virtue, not of the accuracy or quality of content, but of the fact that scripture does something: It refers or "points" the reader to the sequence of God's mighty acts in history which page two constitute Heilgeschichte (Wright); it renders a character (Barth); it expresses the occurrence of a cosmic redemptive event and occasions a transformation of my vision of the world (Thornton); it occasions an event in which my personal and private life is transformed (Bultmann); it expresses the occurrence of a saving and revelatory event for an earlier community and occasions an event of encounter with the holy here and now (Tillich); it proposes or commends concepts men should use to construe their experience, their world and themselves (Bartsch); it occasions an experience of the holy (Warfield). (Uses, 90-1).

Kelsey concludes that part of what it means to call a text "Christian scripture" is that it functions to shape persons' identities so decisively as to transform them when it is used in the context of the common life of Christian community. (Ibid.) Since Christian existence becomes foundational for the concept of authority, the theologian must likewise begin his task at the foundation, since to say "texts are authoritative for theology", one must first assume "these texts are authoritative for the life of the church", which in turn is predicated upon the assumption "these texts are Christian scripture", since "logically, the concept "Christian scripture" and certain concepts of "Christian church" are dialectically related," in that "use of scripture in their common life is essentially a way of shaping and preserving identity" (Uses, 92-3). Although agreeing with Kelsey's close identification of the Church with Scripture, Henry adds that it was the historical church's understanding of the authority of scripture, in accordance with the testimony of Jesus and the apostles, which "shaped and preserved" it throughout the centuris: "The Christian church and the Bible were therefore inseperable from the outset; the church never existed without a Bible nor was there ever a time when it did not recognize the authority of Scripture" (GRA, IV.34)

Kelsey agrees that "scriptural authority" exists in the church, but that this authority is founded upon the scripture's function within the community as opposed to propositional revelation. He claims that in order to move from "text-in-itself" to "text taken as Christian scripture," the theo-logian must construe or interpret in what manner the text is "scripture" for the community of faith in which he finds himself. It is this construal or "imaginative judgment" which serves as the starting point of Kelsey's methodology. The fact that each theologian must make this interpretation results in numerous irreconcilable views regarding the role and applicability of scripture to the contemporary Christian community.

Kelsey sees such divergent views of contemporary theology as evidence of a multi-conceptuality of "scripture", a view in which he is hardly alone. He writes, "'scripture' is not so much a single concept as a family of concepts sharing some similarities while remaining irreducibly different concepts. There is no one 'standard' concept 'scripture'. ...theologians do not appeal to scripture-as-such to help authorize their theological proposals. In the concrete practice of doing theology, they decide on some aspect or, more exactly, some pattern in scripture to which to appeal. That is to say they decide on some one kind of unity to ascribe to the texts, and not some other kind. Not the text as such, but the text-construed-as-a-certain-kind-of-whole is appealed to." (Uses, 103) The concept of "scripture" therefore is founded upon a decision made by the theologian regarding which pattern or "working canon" of the text is to be applied to a theological position, as well as in what manner it is to be applied. In other words, "a theologian's decision about what the task or point is of "doing theology" determines how he will construe scripture and by what rules he will use it so as to authorize his own theological proposals" (Uses, 111). Kelsey believes that each of these various patterns within scripture from which the theologian chooses "clearly exclude certain logically possible construals"(Uses, 196). Note here the logical priority of the theologian's decision to both the construal of text as scripture and in what manner the text is authoritative. Henry inquires what, if anything, might prevent theological proposals from making theological claims which are otherwise understood to be untenable (e.g., describing God as demonic) "if, in fact, the content of Scripture as a body of teaching is not authoritatively definitive, and if the theologian's imaginative construal is decisive for that content, and the use of Scripture in relation to the existential response of the church is the one constant factor in theological formulations" (GRA, IV.474).

Part II of Kelsey's Uses focuses on the theologians' decisions regarding the use of scripture as authoritative by analysing various proposals' formal arguments through the use of the "candid" diagramming method found in Stephen Toulmin's The Uses of Argument (Cambridge; 1964). (See Sample Argument) The reader should keep in mind that Kelsey defines "doing theology" as arguments for particular theological positions which the theologian feels it necessary to elaborate or defend. According to Kelsey, the theological proposal for which the case is made may be understood as the conclusion (C) to the argument. Data (D) is used in an attempt to make a case for the conclusion (C). A warrant (W) is employed in order to support the argument's movement from (D) to (C). If the conclusion (C) is not verifiable with absolute certainty, a qualifier (Q) may need to be appended to the conclusion. A rebuttal (R) is employed when the applicability of the warrant (W) is in question, and a backing (B) is used to deal with challenges to the truthfulness of the warrant (W).

As we have already seen, the theologian begins with the decision of what his proposal (C) will be based on his personal experience within the Christian community. He then determines which "working canon" of scripture is to be authoritative to his proposal and in what manner scripture is to be authoritative. Toulmin's "candid" diagram becomes very useful for identifying the manner in which a theologian appeals to scripture as "authority". Kelsey demonstrates that the theologian's use of scripture may be in the role of data (D), warrant (W), or backing (B), and may be in the form of direct quotations, generalities found within the broader canon, or statements found within a highly limited "working canon". In this sense, Kelsey claims, scripture may be said to possess different types of authority, each derived from its particular role in the theological argument. And although Kelsey admits that arguments consisting of direct authority of scripture exist (e.g., where W is a direct quotation from scripture, or where D is a scriptural quotation and W is either analytically true or self-evident), he finds that among contemporary theologians' argumentation scripture is appealed to only indirectly. (See Argument I)

As an example of direct authority argumentation Kelsey diagrams an argument from Warfield's essay defending plenary verbal inspiration (See Argument II). From the fact that most theological proposals employ indirect appeals to scriptural authority, Kelsey draws the following two conclusions: 1) "There is littlle point in asking flatly of any given theological proposal, 'Is scripture the authority for that?' or 'Is it based on scripture?'" since these questions assume a shared sense of agreement as to what role or roles scripture should play in a particular argument for a particular proposal; and 2) "it is pointless to discuss the biblical authority for theological proposals as though one were confronted with an either/or choice" since "a given theological proposal will necessarily be 'authorized' in several different ways all at once" (Uses, 145). Not only might scripture function (indirectly) authoritatively via one of several possible roles, but the other remaining roles filled with various other elements likewise serve equally as "authorities" for the given proposal. For example, where generalities drawn from a broad canon may "authorize" the proposal through the role of the warrant (W), other "authorities" such as a phenomenology of religious experience and revelatory occurrence, hypothetical generalization, ontological analyses, etc., may be employed in the same argument as data (D) and backing (B) as "authorities". But regarding this apparent freedom in theological argument construction Henry warns, "If the warrant for the movement from Scripture to theological proposals is grounded in imaginative construals and not in rationally grounded doctrine of scriptural authority, then the appeal to 'scriptural authority' reduces to semantic artiface. To affirm that "Scripture" is "authority" for theological proposals, and then to refuse to adduce "Scripture" in the role of "data" while professing to use "Scripture" as "backing," leads to representations in which Scripture and finally even God mean something very different from the prophetic-apostolic delineation" (GRA, IV.473)

Although Kelsey admits that it is not impossible for a theologian to argue sola scriptura, i.e., with every role in the argument filled by some sort of appeal to scripture, he concludes that he has demonstrated "the multiplicity of possible kinds of authority that any one proposal might have all in the same argument: not just appeal to scripture and to an ontology, but also to the results of historical research, to analyses of various aspects of contemporary culture, and to the traditional practices and ways of speaking of the church", and therefore, "there is no one standard page four concept 'authority for church'" (Uses, 147). Functionalist neo-Protestant theology, by demanding that theology be grounded upon subjective conceptions of authority and existence proposes an endless and ever-changing variety of combinations of "authorities" that may be used to support an ever increasing number of new theological proposals originating in the theologian's imagination. Such an understanding removes from the discussion the Scripture's definition of and claim to authority. Henry notes, "the meaningful retention of scriptural authority in any valid form depends logically upon an enduring alternative to conflicting functionalist claims, that is, upon divinely accredited spokesmen of a specific message and upon authoritative writings whose objective truth in matters of doctrine is vouchsafed by divine inspiration." (GRA, IV. 96)

Part III of Kelsey's book deals with the interplay between theology and scripture. According to Kelsey, the starting point for the theologian "is a decision... about the point of engaging in the activity of doing theology, a decision about what is the subject matter of theology. And that is determined, not by the results of historical-critical biblical study, but by the way in which he tries to catch up what Christianity is basically all about in a single, synoptic, imaginative judgment" (Uses, 159; emphasis mine). But, if, as Kesley claims, the foundation for all theological endeavour rests upon the theologian's attempt to imaginatively summarize the totality of Christian meaning for the contemporary community, how might a particular theological proposal be evaluated as to the degree to which it works toward the benefit of the Christian community?

Since functionalists have abandoned the concept of Scripture as an authoritative norm (in the traditional sense) for the church and theology, Kelsey turns instead to discrimen which he defines as designating "a configuration of criteria that are in some way organically related to one another as reciprocal coefficients." At a most general level, the discrimen consists of two facets which are applicable to all theologians, namely, the conjunction of certain uses of scripture and the presence of God. When, however, the theologian begins to more thoroughly define his theology, "when one attends to the specific characteristics of individual theological positions one sees that each differs from all the others in its judgment about how to characterize the discrimen" (Uses, 160). As we have seen, the theologian undertaking the task of "doing theology" must first construe, based on his experience within the common life of the church, an imaginative, synoptic judgment or proposal and then decide in what manner and to what extent certain pattens in scripture will serve as authority in support of this judgment. These decisions, which every theologian must face serves as the first of the two general discrimen, the second of which is the theologian's need to determine for himself "how to characterize the mode in which God is present among the faithful" (Ibid) The theologian must now construe the manner in which God is present within the community. Just as in the imaginative construals of the proposal and authority, the theologian's imaginative decision regarding the mode of God's presence in the community will have a determinative influence upon the subsequent development of his theology.

Kelsey sees three families of ways to contrue the mode in which God is present: the ideational mode, where God is taken to be present in and through the teaching and learning of the doctrine asserted by scripture (Warfield), or the concepts proposed by scripture (Bartsch; Wright); the mode of concrete actuality, where God is taken to be present in and through an agent rendered by scripture (Barth) or in and through a cosmic process of re-creation (Thornton); or the mode of ideal possibility, where God is taken to be present in and through existential events that are occasioned by scripture's kerygmatic statements which announce the possibility of authentic existence (Bultmann), or occasioned by the biblical picture of Jesus as the Christ which mediates the power that makes new being possible (Tillich). (Uses, 161) Once the theologian arrives at his or her construals regarding these discrimen, they alone serve as the "norms" whereby that particular theology may be evaluated. Even though another theologian may not agree with the decisions made by another, as long as the latter's proposal remains consistent to the discrimen decided upon at the outset, any and all proposals are validated. Not only are these discrimen not necessarily applicable to other theologians' proposals, they are not even necessarily applicable to other arguments within the same theologian's overall theological position. Instead of the necessity for logical consistency among the various arguments, "a theological position is a set of several different families of arguments, but it is not itself taken as a whole ordered as an argument; rather theological positions taken as wholes might be looked at in a quasi-aesthetic way as a solicitation of mind and imagination to look at Christianity in a certain way. ...[viz.,] as the expression of a particular vision of the basic character or 'essence' of Christian faith and not in logical terms as though it were one large argument" (Uses, 137). Of Kelsey's apparent devaluation of the role of logic in the theological process Henry writes: "It may in truth be difficult, as Kelsey says, to confine oneself to conceptual analysis and deductive argument, but that difficulty does not of itself commend and accredit less rigorous types of activity in which reason is wedded to imagination rather than to intelligible revelation and laws of logic. Where it serves his preference, Kelsey invokes logical restraints on theological creativity" (GRA, IV.473)

Since Kelsey has thus far argued solely for the primacy of the theologian's imagination, he then raises the question: "Why should the biblical texts be taken as authority?". His proposed answer is two-fold: 1) When one accepts "a certain concept of church", the function of scripture is necessarily implied (since the two are "dialectically related"); and 2) the individual's desire to become a Christian also necessarily involves scripture. Kelsey writes: "Taking these writings as 'scripture' and even as 'canon,' is an integral part of certain ways of becoming a Christian. The reasons for adopting just these writings as 'authority' are as complex, unsystematic, and idiosyncratic as are the reasons individual persons have for becoming Christians. The point turns on the fact that one can only become a Christian in some concrete fashion" (Uses, 164) Of this Henry writes: "In answering the question why the Bible ought in any sense to be taken as theologically 'authoritative,' Kelsey does not and cannot help us much. To emphasize that the decision to take Scripture as religiously authoritative is implicit in the decision to become a Christian, or that 'canonicity decision' is analytical in the concept 'church'... eliminates logically compelling reasons for doing so. Instead, we are offered only psycho-sociological considerations that are readily transferable to Muslim or Hindu communities and whatever writings they consider authoritative" (GRA, 472)

Since Scripture has become for Kelsey merely an existential medium for the church, the question then arises: To whom or to what are theologians accountable? For Kelsey, text as scripture, and therefore scripture as authority are dependent upon the individual or community's identification with the 'church'. The theologian willingly confines himself to a self-determined and partial authority pattern within scripture in order to support a particular proposal based on experiences within the community of faith which is arrived at via an imaginative judgment. This judgment aims at summarizing the mode in which God is present within the Christian community. Since the aim of the theologian's proposal is grounded in the community (and his decision regarding how God is ultimately present within it), Kelsey claims that the imaginative act is therefore accountable to certain features of the common life of the church. One condition which the community places upon the imaginative act is that it must be capable of consistent formulation. The proposal must be patient of reasoned elaboration into proposals on a variety of theological topics. Yet, Kesley claims, "none of this entails that the imaginative judgment itself must have been arrived at through reasoned argument. On the contrary, the point is that the judgment is an imaginative act" (Uses, 171). The accountability of a given proposal to reasoned elaboration therefore begins subsequent to the imaginative creation of the proposal. In other words, no reasoned justification need be given for the defense of any proposal reasonably argued for.

A second factor holding the imaginative act accountable is what Kelsey refers to as "culturally conditioned limits to what either the theologian or his readers can find seriously imaginable" (Ibid). "Seriously imaginable" proposals are only those proposal which present themselves as imaginable ways of shaping one's personal identity or the identity of the community which is important to oneself. This amounts to requiring the theologian to imagine proposals which are currently viable within the fluidity of a given culture's imaginative ability. Those proposals which cannot adapt to the changing cultural imagination are inevitably cast aside as "unimaginable". Kelsey suggests an example of this: "As the culture changes, what is seriously imaginable may change and with it the force of certain construals of the mode of God's presence may change. For example, ...Warfield's way of construing scripture is grounded at least in part in taking the Bible as a holy object in and through which the Christian experiences numinous power. But if that way of construing scripture seems alien to many Americans it may be because it is simply no longer seriously imaginable for them. ...The passage of time has not so much disproved him as make him seem terribly culture-conditioned" (Uses, 172-3). If cultural acceptance is the criteria for a theology's validity, what can be said for the views of such antiquarians as Paul and Peter? Rather than viewing the themselves as men who eloquently adapted an existential message into the imaginative vocabulary of the day, the apostles claimed to convey an objective and divinely inspired message which was authoritative for experience, not authoritative of experience. Henry writes: "As merely human formulations, even as formulations of advice, the words of the apostles have no authority and need not be followed; only because God has made them bond slaves and constituted them verbal mouthpieces is what the apostles claim binding upon us. Nothing whatever requires us to defer to the personal opinions of Saul of Tarsus or any other religious personality, however prestigious, however intellectually gifted, or however clever. Only a divinely conferred authority to communicate a transcendentally given message can oblige us". (GRA, IV.30)

Kelsey denies that theology is essentially a "translation" of the doctrinal assertions of scripture into the contemporary context, for this would require that there be one "meaning" of scripture which would then be translatable into one contemporary "meaning". Kelsey inquires: "Is there really a 'semantic structure'... to the Bible? ...Is there really a 'semantic structure' or 'logical structure' to the world's thought?" Kelsey answers in the negative by concluding, "Use of "translation" as a metaphor for the relation between Bible and contemporary theology seems to trade on misleading block thinking." (Uses, 188). Rather than presenting culture (whether ancient or contemporary) with a continuous and single conceptuality, Kelsey sees the presence of conceptual discontinuity within cultures and therefore throughout scripture. Such discontinuity among concepts would require the theologian to facilitate a change from one conceptuality to another. This move is therefore seen, not as "translation" but as a "re-description" of concepts, which "uses different concepts at crucial points in the account" (Uses, 188-9; emphasis mine). But we find evidence in Scripture which argues for a unified conceptuality of revelation, for how else could first-century (A.D.) Jews make sense of the ancient writings comprising the Torah? How could the concepts of Abraham or Moses be intelligible to Jesus and Paul? In 1 Cor. 10:11 Paul writes, "These things [i.e., Israelite history]... were written down as warnings for us...", demonstrating that the Old Testament's message transcends history. Henry writes: The Old Testament as literature retains an interest and value beyond its own time; far more than this, its truth is not limited to either the time of composition or to the audience to whom it was originally addressed precisely because of its revelational authority, especially because of its anticipatory teaching about Christ and the hope God proffers those who receive him." (GRA, IV.38) Regarding the message of the New Testament, "The apostles confront us in their writings not merely as 'chosen' spokesmen but as authorized conveyors of divine truth and its awesome consequences for human destiny; they insist that superhuman, supernatural authority inheres in Scripture" (Ibid.) Regarding the trans-cultural message of Jesus, William Procter states, "it is through the Bible that Jesus Christ now exercises his divine authority, imparting authoritative truth, issuing authoritative commands and imposing an authoritative norm by which all the arrangements and statements made by the church must be shaped an corrected" (quoted in GRA, IV.39)

Another problem Kelsey has with the term "translation" as describing the task of the theologian is that such an understanding "makes some theologians' methods for bringing scripture to bear on theology normative and implicitly invalidates the actual methods of others" (Uses, 191). Rather than causing some modern theologians the discomfort of scrutiny, Kelsey insists "we need first to have a general description of the scripture-theology relation that is 'theological position neutral,' and does not tacitly make certain theologians' methods normative. Without such a term, it is impossible to state fairly what is at issue as between two opposed Christian theological positions" (Ibid). Again, "If one does not state the problem about 'normativity' in a way that simply assumes the validity of the 'standard picture' (i.e., theology as translation), it is possible to see how our analysis of its 'authority' does in fact preserve scripture's 'normativity' for the common life of the church and therewith for theology" (Uses, 192; additions mine). Rather than seeing content as the source of scripture's normativity, Kelsey claims it is the patterns in scripture from which the theologian chooses and to which he commits himself in the pursuit of defending an imaginative proposal. And just as there are multiple patterns within scripture upon which a proposal might seek partial authority, so no one theology can claim to adhere any more closely to scripture's normativity than any other. But Henry disagrees with the contentions that theology is neither translation nor accountable to a certain criteron of normativity. He writes: "the biblical writers themselves appeal to Scripture as revelationally 'given' in content and not merely in form. Moreover, the enterprise of Bible translation upon which Christian theology depends assumes a basic textual meaning. Both before the modern era and in contemporary times as well, Christians have deferred to Scripture's truth-content as a norm not only over against their own doctrine of Scripture but over against that of non-evangelical theologians also. The test of whether Scripture is really normative for a theological proposal is whether that proposal 'derives from the Bible' or from some other source. Normative for theological affirmations is the determinate conceptual content of the biblical texts. Every effort to maintain scriptural authority on any other basis issues in the demolition of the authority of the Bible by expanding that concept into divergent and contradictory notions, none of which can be taken as objectively definitive, and each of which becomes more confusing than illuminating on a merely functional basis." (GRA, IV.474)

Finally, Kelsey seeks to remove the discussion of authority from its traditional place within the doctrine of revelation. Since biblical authority, for Kelsey, pertains primarily to shaping of individual and community Christian existence, it should be seen as part of the elaboration of the doctrines of "sanctification" and "ecclesiology". By viewing authority in relation to revelation gives the false impression that the Bible offers one concept of revelation whereby the Bible is authoritative. Instead of "the concept of revelation", Kelsey claims, "there is no one biblical concept 'revelation'." In fact, the ways in which the Bible presents God's modes of communication to mankind are so numerous that they "cannot fit together coherently under any synthesis of biblical concepts" (Uses, 209). Henry, on the other hand, sees a unified concept of revelation as foundational to the task of doing theology. Without a "Christian Scripture" comprised of intelligible content and possessing divine origin and authority, "Christian theology" becomes a fundamentally human enterprise. To the evangelical, Christian Scripture and theology remain much more than mere imaginative, functional or existential media. Rather, Scripture is indeed "the reservoir and conduit of divine truth, the authoritative written record and exposition of God's nature and will" (Henry's eleventh thesis). And Christian theology "is normatively a rational disciple grounded in [this] divine revelation" (GRA, IV.475). Henry sees the task of Christian theology as seven-fold:

1. to explain the methodology appropriate to its special object of understanding, that is, God.
2. to adduce the truths and facts knowable by that method.
3. to exhibit persuasive epistemological credentials, including a proper verifying principle and test of truth.
4. to present its data in an orderly and systematic manner.
5. to display the logical superiority of revelational theology over rival views.
6. to stimulate Christian proclamation and evaluate it by its proper norm.
7. to invite a fallen and otherwise doomed humanity to regenerate life in a new society shaped by the transforming truth and dynamic redemption found only in Jesus Christ. (Ibid.)

Bibliography

     Henry, Carl F.H. God, Revelation and Authority. Vol. IV. (Waco: Word Books; 1979)
     Kelsey, David H. The Uses of Scripture in Recent Theology. (Philadelphia: Fortress; 1975)