November 2007 - Protestant Reformed Churches in America

(Henry)—whose objective
content human knowing subjects
then process intellectually.
Its epistemic primacy
stems rather from its nature as
the church’s authoritative
script [note that word “script,”
RC], the normative specification
for interpreting what God
is saying and doing in creation,
in the history of Israel,
and in Jesus Christ. It is a
mistake to abstract Scripture
from the drama of redemption
and treat it as an autonomous
holy object. Scripture is correctly
grasped only when
viewed sub specie theodramatis,
that is, in relation to
the events it recounts, displays
and enjoins (p. 167).
… we speak not of propositional
but prepositional theology.
In particular, everything
hinges on how we parse the
Spirit’s speaking, using the
prepositions “in and through”
the Scriptures (p. 169).
There ought to be little doubt
that Vanhoozer’s view of Scripture
diverges from the classic
and confessionally Reformed
view of Scripture.
Second, what makes this
divergence clear is Vanhoozer’s
insistence that Scripture is
“multiperspectival” (pp. 178 ff.)
and his designation of Scripture
Book Reviews
as a “script,” the “script” in the
“theodrama” (pp. 173 ff.). This
is not only a deficient description
of Scripture, but an altogether
erroneous description.
For a script is a dead thing, in
itself. It is not the script that is
intended to be revelatory, but
the acting out of the script. And
because it is only a script, it may
be changed by the actors under
the inspiration of the moment.
Whether they follow the script
or not is not, after all, so very
important.
And, third, Vanhoozer is infected
with the false teaching of
the pluriformity of the church.
Just as it takes four Gospels
to tell the story of Jesus Christ,
so it takes many interpretative
communities and traditions
fully to understand the Gospels
(and the rest of Scripture).
The church comes to a
fuller understanding of its authoritative
script to see what
other local churches have
made of it. In short, a
Christologically centred and
canonically bounded polyphonic
tradition that includes
Western and non-Western, ancient
and contemporary
voices best corresponds to the
nature of the Scriptures themselves
(p. 180).
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