What is Biologos's position on the role of the Holy Spirit in Biblical Interpretation?

Faith & Science Conversation
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Just sharing my own views as a response here, in recent years, I’ve come to more deeply appreciate what I see as the activity of the Spirit.

I see the Spirit as God’s agency of continued work and revelation today in regard to both old and new issues that we face. That is in direct contrast to “the Letter” in which it is deemed that something has been entirely nailed down by written scriptures already … the Lord has already spoken, and the matter is settled for all time. Protestants keen on being rooted in the Bible really, really insist on this because they have a - perhaps understandable - suspicion, even hostility toward anything that smacks of subjectivity or manipulation according to the vagaries of culture or prevalent sensibilities of the times. We want it nailed down, because any and everything not “nailed down” will get stolen and misused, or so we tell ourselves. And we have no shortage of examples to knowingly point at to drive home our point.

And yet, one can’t read very far into the New Testament without seeing that this really isn’t the way the Spirit did things in the early church. Yes - there are those passage wherein somebody is “searching scriptures” to see if something holds up - and they are commended for it. But there are also the many stories of the apostles pretty badly upsetting the “Let’s attend to scriptures” folks by deciding that the Spirit was leading them in new directions, which they -with no little controversy, decided they need to attend to, even if it meant no longer preaching and insisting on “the Letter” of scriptures as understood up to that point. Jesus did this plenty - and his disciples and the church fathers after him followed his example. Nowhere in scriptures are we warned against following these early examples - we are not told that they had special - but now expired dispensation to do this. We’re not told that we have to lapse back into some “more clarified version”, going back to following every Letter as a legalistic matter again. Those who want to go that direction are just making a new law “the Letter 2.0”, if you will, and going right back to being Pharisees with that again. But Paul will have none of this when you read Galatians, and he’s quite emphatically perturbed about it too.

So while all the “dangers of subjectivity” are quite real and in need of community vigilance, we nonetheless cannot escape the need - I would say even the imperative to be letting the Spirit lead us in fresh directions in how we understand and apply scriptures to our situations today. We really do like and prefer the “old wineskins” in so many ways - and Jesus anticipates as much - the “old wine” is just so much more comfortable and preferred by us - everything nailed down, it’s all about the Letter, and we don’t have to worry or think about anything, except … we discover life doesn’t work that way. But trying to put the new wine into the old skins doesn’t work either. I think the current and fresh leading of the Spirit is the “new wineskin” and new wine we’re called to take up.

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Hey!

That’s an interesting question. I would be very interested in hearing what is behind it, what prompts you to ask and seek the answer to it.

Your question actually rather made my hair stand on end, though. So, I went back and looked over the “What We Believe” page.

While I understand that the questions Biologos engages with have deep implications for Christians, I appreciate that Biologos (that is, the humans that form it), recognizes itself as a parachurch organization that is trying to help people reconcile Christian faith and scientific reality, WITHOUT attempting to replace the Church, or churches, or historic Christian doctrines.

Expanding a basic belief statement, that attempts to ground the organization in the foundational Christian beliefs, into the realm of doctrinal statements is out of the scope of the organization’s work.

You have probably noticed that there is a BROAD range of Christian beliefs expressed in the various discussions in the forum. I would hope that Biologos continues to refrain from developing formal statements that would eventually exclude Christians who are looking here for a place to work out the science/faith concerns.

We can rely on our denominational/traditional/confessional documents to help us out with the full details of Christian doctrine.

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So how do we determine between competing claims of inspiration?

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I don’t understand the question. What are the competing claims?

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I agree with Mitchell’s statement that Biologos cannot have a position on every question, as it is a big tent organization that welcomes many to stand under its folds. But a good question, nontheless.

My personal ex[erioence is that the role of the Spirit is primary. At times a particular passage has changed meaning for me, but those different meanings were true for their time. The danger of course, in that saying meaning is Spirit led, means everyone can claim their interpretation is the true one, to the exclusion of all others. I struggle with that, particularly when those interpretations are in opposition rather than complementary. But ultimately, take solace in knowing I am right. :wink:

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Claims of inspired meaning, of inspired interpretation, claims of orthodoxy, truth claims. You know the drill. Conservatives and liberals all invoke the Holy Spirit, claim Him, explicitly or implicitly. Who doesn’t?

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Sure. But surely you are not expecting a non-profit to adjudicate claims and make official decisions about who is hearing the Holy Spirit correctly.

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Not at all! But my favourite question of all professionals is, what would you do? Don’t worry. That’s rhetorical too.

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I’m quite sure that Dietrich Bonhoeffer would attribute the Holy Spirit’s work as enabling the perspectives he espouses, represented here:
 

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And this is exactly the kind of claim I mean.

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A few weeks ago, I added some more people to my “ignore” list, who seem to have entered the Forum to bully people into “the kingdom” as they understand it. I suppose Biologos can allow them go hang around, in hopes they will learn something from the folks who are willing to engage, bit that won’t be me. Biologos is gracious that way, and there are many brilliant people here, who may give them something the Holy Spirit will work with. We can pray for that.

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Is this what you want me to see, Klax?

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Hi Kendel
If none here are being ministered to by what Shannon or I have posted please say so. Discussion of “faith” is welcomed on BioLogos but it seems to exclude discussion of the Author and Fnisher of “the faith”.
Bullying? I’ve seen a lot of bullying here myself. There are those who ridicule and make sarcastic remarks about my pastor, Shannon and myself. As soon as the subject of some teachings/doctrines are posted on the board they get ridiculed right away. Comments such as “You post too much scripture.” “Oh, the creationists made a mistake with their logo.”
Comments like ….“Only Kelli and her pastor knows what is right”…
It is obviously a different opinion than yours. Based on that alone you are saying your opinion is right because you believe my explanation is wrong. Okay.
If I’ve broken the blog rules and am at risk of being banned from the discussion board just say so. But the questions and the comments and the ridicule keep on coming. Why not choose to ignore my posts? Or just hide or delete everything that I have posted.

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It’s not the subject. It is how you are presenting it.

Questions and comments are certainly to be expected. Given the wide range of people who post here the ridicule is not unusual.

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The moderation team tries to address blatant ridicule when we see it or when it is flagged. Rest assured that messages have been sent to certain people that their constant snark is not appreciated. We can’t babysit every thread though, and sometimes people need thicker skin, and need to extend the benefit of the doubt that not everyone who disagrees with you or expresses the opinion that your ideas are wrong or misguided is trying to personally insult you.

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It’ll do Kelli. Again can you show me? Can you point to any good works by Bill that show he’s being led by the Spirit in his hermeneutic? That he’s worth following in any regard. That by his works his words are valid? How’s his righteousness going? You know, his activism? His pursuit of social justice?

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Hi Kelli,

I do apologize for my rudeness and ridicule.

As for the bullying aspect, this is challenging as I and many other have felt that the mechanisms and ways of presentations have been themselves antagonistic (in a site where people are trying to peacefully reconcile their faith and science and a posting of an extremely uncharitable comparison is presented or various litmus tests).

This was guised in comment on an interpretation of a verse that was declared as a perfect guaranteed doctrine detector which in light of the vast variance of the faith has very insulting insinuations.

Do you see the impact of this?

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Hey Kendel. What prompted me to do this was this video by ANE and Bible scholar Ben Stanhope. His take on it may or may not be right (it’s not good to blindly trust even scholars like him) but seeing as this question is very important in these conversations to reconcile science and scripture (for obvious reasons) I would have thought that BioLogos would have a well-sourced article or something on it.

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Hey Clovis!

Thanks for sharing this video and your interest in Biologos at least having an article on the Holy Spirit’s role in interpretation.

Stanhope does a great job of covering one facet of the matter. In my (very likely unrepresentative) experience, the view Stanhope critiques in the video is fairly extreme, although it is well-represented in the churches I’ve been a part of in the U.S.

What I’m more familiar with in churches that hold to a grammatical-historical hermeneutic is, mingled with a genuine valuing of studying the Bible and popular, basic study aids (Bible dictionaries, basic historical background) is a genuine, but unstated fear, of serious intellectual and academic inquiry that encounters challenges to the things many of us take for granted in (American?, evangelical) Christianity. I have been warned from numerous pulpits about a “intellectual assent” in contrast to “saving faith”, and encouraged to focus more on serious Bible study, rather than much academic study (as if they are opposed to each other). I honestly think many of the pastors I have heard mean well; they want to communicate to their congregations that saving faith is for anyone, not an intellectual elite, and that being highly educated doesn’t earn brownie points with Jesus. However, the message seems also to be taken as a permission slip to be intellectually lazy, and sets sincere believers up to be easy pickin’s for any wave of false teaching that insists on its biblicity.

While I think Stanhope’s critique is valid (but limited), and such views of the role of the Holy Spirit in biblical interpretation are disasterous, I also think Biologos needs to be very careful about how it approaches the matter, particularly because of its Big Tent and parachurch status.

The What We Believe - BioLogos page speaks clearly enough, I think, to satisfy a broad understanding of the work of the Holy Spirit held by the organization, while allowing for many denominational/personal differences:

  1. We believe the Bible is the inspired and authoritative word of God. By the Holy Spirit it is the “living and active” means through which God speaks to the church today, bearing witness to God’s Son, Jesus, as the divine Logos, or Word of God.
  2. We believe that God also reveals himself in and through the natural world he created, which displays his glory, eternal power, and divine nature. Properly interpreted, Scripture and nature are complementary and faithful witnesses to their common Author.

These two broad statements, when applied to the views that Stanhope critiques, as well as the views I am familiar with, pretty quickly clarify the different understanding Biologos has of the role of the Holy Spirit in interpretation of scripture as well as the natural world.

[Added later] I also finally looked at the Common Questions page that Christy shared. It is even more thorough than the page I quoted.

I think, as we look at the types of engagement we see in the forum (and on other organizational websites) , that those who hold to the views Stanhope critiques, very clearly understand (and disagree with/war against) the difference in Biologos’ view on the Holy Spirit’s role in biblical interpretation.

In a nutshell (after you read ALL THIS) I think Biologos is clear enough and also broad enough to allow for its mission.

Kendel

Thanks for your patience in slogging through all this.

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