Chapter 12

Conclusion: Prospects for Deepening Our Understanding of the Bible

The common thread through all our discussion has been the theme that world views, frameworks, and over-all contexts influence knowledge and discovery in all areas. Knowledge is always qualified by its context. People know what they know against a background of other knowledge. This background includes both closely related knowledge in closely related fields and knowledge of a whole world view, some of which is tacit rather than explicitly known to be known. In fact, all of us know many things that we do not realize that we know. If we are Americans, we know that we are supposed to knock at other people's front door. But in some cultures people cough instead of knocking. Such tacit knowledge is valuable, but it can also be dangerous. We can make assumptions that block out access to discovery (such as when we assume that everyone in other cultures has to knock at other people's doors).

Our background of knowledge colors any particular bit of knowledge, and colors our expectations about what we will discover when we look at something new, or when we look at something old for a second or third time. Because background knowledge is limited and differs from person to person, no one has a pristine neutral standpoint from which to acquire more knowledge. Such a situation is part of what it means to be a creature, to be finite. Hence it holds true for biblical interpretation and scientific investigation alike. Kuhn's work in the history and philosophy of science, by revising our idea of scientific method, makes more noticeable the parallels in this respect between science and biblical interpretation. Kuhn draws our attention to the contextualized character of knowledge in both fields.

The implications for biblical interpretation are multifarious. On the deepest level, we are challenged to become more aware of our dependence on God, and of the significant role of the Holy Spirit and of our Christian commitment in influencing the acquisition of knowledge in general and biblical interpretation in particular (see section 33). Also, we become more aware of the contaminations of sin in the intellectual realm. We must train ourselves to detect alien, antibiblical presuppositions underlying the disciplinary frameworks for interpretation influenced by the Enlightenment. At the same time, none of us escapes the influences of our own sin or the sinful biases of the surrounding culture. Hence, we must be self-critical as well as critical of others.

Second, by becoming more aware of the influence of theological systems on interpretation, we are in a better position to conduct dialog with those adhering to other systems.

Third, as the surrounding culture changes, we may be called upon to undertake a reorganization of our theological system or our interpretive practices in order, without compromising the biblical message, to communicate it more effectively to the people inhabiting the culture. Traditional Western theology has long been structured largely in terms of answering the question of guilt: how may I, a guilty sinner, escape condemnation before the holy and perfect Judge of the universe? But modern secularists find such questions less intelligible, let alone relevant, than questions about the meaning of their life in a seemingly lonely, impersonal universe. A familial theology organized more prominently around the deeply personal categories of sonship and adoption may perhaps address secularists more effectively than a covenant theology organized more prominently around the question of legal guilt. Both types of organization and both types of question are legitimate in principle, but one may be more useful as a point of contact.

Or again, in many third-world tribal cultures the prominent existential question is how to escape the power of evil spirits. Most of Western theology is far less equipped than is the Bible itself to address such a question.

Fourth, our observations about perspectives challenge us to look at old passages of the Bible in new ways. Sometimes a new perspective may open up for us new interpretive possibilities for difficult passages like Rom. 7. Other times we will discover new truths about relatively uncontroversial passages like Ps. 23, or new relationships that passages like 1 Sam. 17 sustain to major themes of the Bible. In all this process, we will discover anew that the wisdom of God is unsearchably deep (Rom. 11:33-36).