NEW TESTAMENT THEOLOGY

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CONTEMPORARY HERMENEUTICS AND STUDY OF Õ. T. 137 an ordered, connected sequence of events. Rather its essence is a dynamic, interpersonal reality, fluid and open in character. Despite the complex and shaded idiom of much of current absorption with the question of hermeneutics, the motive which drives it is not too difficult to understand. In bringing this sketch to a close, I would underscore that the intensity of this preoccupation reflects just how pressing has become the dilemma created by the rejection of the divine origin and authority of the Bible. A crisis in understanding is the price paid for autonomy, for making man the interpreter constitutive for meaning and revelation. Ours is a day when, as never before, man has become a question to himself. Man himself has become hermeneutically problematic, and his entire existence is conceived of as one great interpretative endeavor. In a world in which it is held that the only absolute is uncertainty, he searches for norms. From the aimless roll of time in which he is caught up he tries to wrest meaning. On the ever-drifting sands of historical theology he attempts the impossible task of erecting a coherent statement of faith. The question inevitably arises concerning the response God's people are to make as they are called to confession in this hermeneutically charged atmosphere. Or to restrict ourselves to but one aspect of this question and give it a somewhat more personal tone: what is the responsibility of the theologian? In dealing with this question here, my interest is not so much in a direct confrontation with contemporary hermeneutics. Rather against the background of the outline just given I shall try to indicate several fundamental perspectives which it appears to me must be maintained. It goes without saying that much which could be said and even needs to be said will remain unsaid. 1) Opposition to the presuppositions of the "Enlightenment" must continue to be sharply focused and unabated. To put it positively, the consideration of most profound, most fundamental hermeneutical significance is very simply this: the Bible is God's word. That this is basic is obvious, but just how basic does not always appear to be sufficiently grasped. The Bible is God's word — one must say that this, strictly
138 WESTMINSTER THEOLOGICAL JOURNAL speaking, is a pre-hermeneutical or, if you will, a metahermeneutical consideration. To be sure, the way in which this truth is brought to expression may be challenged. Whether or not the doctrine of verbal inspiration admits to a more adequate expression always remains an open question. But the conviction which is reflected in this statement: the Bible is God's Word — that conviction which arises directly and immediately out of exposure not only (perhaps not even primarily) to the "All Scripture is God-breathed" of II Timothy 3:16, but from exposure to Scripture in all its parts — that conviction may not be called in question or made hermeneutically problematic. Let me be crystal clear concerning the conviction I am talking about here. It is not a deeply rooted persuasion about the central message of the Bible; it is not a being grasped by the basic theme of Scripture, although this, to be sure, is involved. Rather it is a settled conviction, a firm belief, concerning the text as text. The words of the text in all their plurality and laterality are the words of God. The book of Romans, these words penned in ink on the papyrus (perhaps by an amanuensis!), just as surely as Paul, indeed more properly, have God as author. Again, it is possible to challenge the propriety of these statements as far as their form is concerned. It is conceivable that they could be improved upon in terms of their intention. It could be said better. However, at the same time it needs to be recognized that in the debate over Scripture there comes a point when, if there is still a tendency to qualify the "is" in the statement "the Bible is God's Word," to introduce an element of discontinuity, no matter how slight, between "God's word" and "Bible," if there is still an inclination to shade the divine authorship of Scripture; then, most probably, the problem is not one of simply hermeneutical proportions, that is, there is not simply need for further clarification. Rather the problem has a pre-hermeneutical, a pre-functional basis. There is need for that pre-hermeneutical clarification known otherwise as the regenerating, convincing, teaching power of the Holy Spirit about which Paul writes in I Corinthians 2. Belief in the divine origin of the text, of course, saves no one. But it appears to me increasingly necessary to insist that the conviction that the words of the Bible are the
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