Chapter 6

Disciplinary Matrices in Biblical Interpretation

It is time now to take stock of what we have observed about biblical interpretation as an academic discipline.

20. A summary of the dynamics of intellectual development in biblical interpretation

To begin with, there are communities and subcommunities of people engaged in intensive intellectual reflection concerning biblical interpretation. We are not thinking here of the community of all members of a church or a denomination. This is a community, but its concerns and interests are usually different from those interested in solving intellectual problems in biblical interpretation. We want to focus, then, on communities consisting of scholars working on some common concerns and communicating with one another. A disciplinary matrix in biblical interpretation consists of the "constellation of group commitments" of such a community.¹ Unity within interpretive communities depends on just such a disciplinary matrix, a network of shared assumptions, methods, standards, and sources. Sometimes a particularly outstanding work in theology may set the pace for the future of theological reflection. Augustine's theology became the exemplar for the medieval period, and Calvin's theology became the exemplar for one post-Reformation school, namely Calvinism. At some times and places in the history of the church, a great deal of unity has existed; at other times a number of competing schools have vied for dominance, each offering a somewhat different version of a preferred disciplinary matrix.

Over time, it is possible for one disciplinary matrix to be replaced by another. Such an event might be labeled an "interpretive revolution" or "theological revolution." The Reformation and the rise of the historical-critical method are examples of revolutions. The description of such revolutions can to a great extent follow the lines of Kuhn's description of scientific revolutions. In fact, Kuhn indicates that his own idea of revolution is originally borrowed from the history of other fields:

Historians of literature, of music, of the arts, of political development, and of many other human activities have long described their subjects in the same way. Periodization in terms of revolutionary breaks in style, taste, and institutional structure have been among their standard tools. If I have been original with respect to concepts like these, it has mainly been by applying them to the sciences, fields which had been widely thought to develop in a different way.²

We might expect this simply because human communities interested in giving explanations in a field and solving the problems of the field are bound to behave in similar ways, whatever the field. If one line of explanation (one exemplar) seems promising, they stick with this line of explanation until they start having problems with it. Anomalies multiply. Then some more adventuresome souls tinker with the existing disciplinary matrix. If a resolution is not found, more radical alternatives are tried. If one of these seems to promise success, more and more people convert to the new alternative. This is the beginning of a revolution. And so on. We have seen this analysis applied in both science and biblical interpretation.

But we should note right away that revolutions in biblical interpretation never seem to be as successful as scientific revolutions. A generation after Einstein's work, it is impossible to find a pure Newtonian. But it is still possible to find Augustinians, Thomists, and people who reject the historical-critical method.

21. Types of disciplinary matrices in biblical interpretation

What types of revolution might there be in biblical interpretation? Revolutions in biblical interpretation, or changes in disciplinary matrix, can be more or less major in character. They can be more or less radical. Changing from medieval theology to Calvinism, or from Calvinism to Arminianism, represents a major change. But through the change some things remain similar. All three theologies agree that the Bible is God's word. What the Bible says, God says. The historical-critical revolution, in challenging the common assumption of all three of these theologies, represented a more radical revolution than a change from one to another of the three. Since the Bible was the primary source for theology, changing the status of the Bible and the way that it was investigated would radically change theology as a whole.

Moreover, the disciplinary matrix of a theological community includes a network of many different kinds of assumptions and values. We have summaries of theological truths in confessions and doctrinal statements. We have assumptions about the source of theological authority, whether authority is ascribed to the Bible, to experience, to doctrinal standards, to church tradition, or to some combination of these. We have assumptions about the methods to be used in interpreting the Bible, the relation of human authors to God, the relation of OT to NT, and so on. We have standards for the kinds of argumentative procedures to be used: the Sic et Non of Abelard, the syllogisms of Aristotle, the logic of Petrus Ramus. We have assumptions about the responsibility of biblical interpreters to the church. We have assumptions about human nature and its abilities to penetrate theological truth.

Conceivably, a mini-revolution in biblical interpretation might touch one of these areas but not (or not so much) the others. Thus we might distinguish between hermeneutical revolutions, doctrinal revolutions, and revolutions in authority. But many revolutions in practice have touched to some degree on several of these areas at once. So any classification is likely to be artificial.

It might be more fruitful to think of the size of the community which is revolutionized by a particular change. Nowadays we can distinguish, at least in a rough and ready way, the subcommunities of OT scholars, NT scholars, systematic theologians, church historians, homileticians, specialists in Christian education, specialists in counseling, missiologists, and the church at large. A change that was revolutionary within a given field might cause minor changes, but not revolution, in sister fields. Kuhn notes that the same is true in natural science.³ Finally, we must remember that the change of a single individual from one disciplinary matrix to another is a kind of revolution for that person. For example, a Calvinist might become an Arminian, or an adherent of orthodox theology might turn to the historical-critical method. Kuhn calls this kind of personal revolution a "conversion."⁴ Obviously this type of conversion does have some epistemological similarity to religious conversion in the ordinary sense. But for the sake of clarity I will call this type of personal revolution an "alternation."⁵

A religious conversion to Christianity is the most radical possible change. Such conversion affects one's whole world view. Even from a sociological or anthropological point of view, the change is more radical than changes of theology within the Christian faith. Moreover, we must say that the change is not merely intellectual, or even primarily intellectual. It involves a new set of beliefs, but it also involves a new life. Theologically speaking, we are dealing here with the religious root of human existence. Is a person for God or against him? Is he reconciled to God or still alienated? This question points to roots deeper even than a change of world view, since changes of world view can take place in a conversion from one non-Christian religion to another, or a transition (by either a non-Christian or a Christian) from tribal to modern Western culture.

The next most radical change is a change in world view. By "world view" I mean the network of assumptions, values, customs, ways of coping with the world, common to one's culture of subculture, held largely unconsciously. The key word here is "unconsciously." A world view is not simply a self-consciously adopted philosophy or theory of the world. It is what one assumes without realizing that one is even assuming it. A change from the supernatural world view of medieval society or the world view of a tribal society, to the naturalistic, mechanistic world view the modern West is such a change. It involves changes in self-consciously held beliefs, to be sure. But it involves changes also in things that one thought were impossible to change.

After changes in world view one is ready to talk about changes of theological systems. Changes from Roman Catholic theology to Protestant theology, or Arminian to Calvinist theology, would be examples. Such changes represent revolutions for a systematic theologian. For specialists in exegesis, changes in one's view of the historical setting, or one's view of the author's genre and purposes, would often have a sweeping effect analogous to a systematic theologian's change of dogmatic system. Changes in hermeneutical method might result in revolutions in either systematic theology or exegesis or both. In my opinion, exegesis and systematic theology belong together, in one large-scale project of understanding the Bible better. But in current scholarly practice, the two disciplines have their own distinctive subcultures, so that an analysis of patterns of development and revolution must to some extent treat the disciplines separately.

After changes in theological systems come changes in views on individual points--for example, changes in points of doctrine if one is a systematic theologian, or changes in interpretations of individual texts if one is an exegetical specialist. Many of these changes will not be revolutionary in an earth-shaking way. But many do still involve a kind of change of perspective, a change in which all the parts get rearranged and are seen in a new way. For instance, consider someone changing from interpreting Rom. 7:14-25 as regenerate man to interpreting it as unregenerate man. Such a change involves a simultaneous alternation in one's understanding of nearly all the verses, of the verses relations to one another, and of the relation of 7:14-25 to neighboring passages.

A similar kind of classification has already been suggested in the philosophy of science. After the appearance of the first edition of Kuhn's Structure of Scientific Revolutions, Margaret Masterman endeavored to straighten out Kuhn's multiple uses of "paradigm."⁶ Masterman distinguishes no less than 21 different senses of "paradigm." They all refer to clusters of beliefs of one kind or another. But she observes that they fall into three main categories.

In the first, broadest category are "metaphysical paradigms." These are the unquestioned presuppositions about the nature of the world. They are analogous to what we have called world views. A second, narrower category consists in "sociological paradigms," roughly what Kuhn later called "disciplinary matrices." These are the specific assumptions and values in the background of a specific discipline. They are analogous to theological systems in systematic theology or hermeneutical systems in exegetical disciplines.

Third, there are "artifact" or "construct" paradigms, what Kuhn later calls "exemplars." These are the specific scientific achievements, embodied in crucial theoretical advances and crucial experimental results supporting the theories. This third category is in some ways the most important for Kuhn, and it is also the one that tends to distinguish science from other academic disciplines. Exemplars that have been accepted as models by an entire community of scientists have a key role in the puzzle-solving process that is characteristic of normal science. In biblical interpretation there is not always anything quite analogous. Standard theological answers in specific areas of doctrine (such as the ancient creeds provided), and standards exegetical answers on specific texts, are similar in at least some ways. They are results to which people often refer back. However, they do not usually serve as a model for future research. The creedal formulations with respect to the doctrine of God have for the most part functioned as decisive formulations on a given point of doctrine, but not as models of how theology is to be done in other areas. Each area of doctrine needs its own solution, and it is not clear how the solution in one area could serve as a model.

In a very few cases, however, one may find examples which come closer to being exemplars in a Kuhnian sense. Within the historical-critical method, the classic four document hypothesis about the sources of the Pentateuch became something of an exemplar for how source criticism ought to be done on any book of the Bible. Scholarly work on the Pentateuch was expected to make advances by solving puzzles about particular texts on the basis of the over-all framework provided by the four document hypothesis. The work of evangelicals was virtually excluded from this scholarly community of historical-critical scholarship in the OT because evangelicals would not work on the foundation of this paradigm. Within the twentieth century, of course, we have seen the paradigm begin to break up under the weight of anomalies.

22. Knowledge as contextually colored

Do all the type of changes above really have anything special about them? Why do we not just talk about changes in people and in their views? Kuhn would not have had anything original to say if he just claimed that science changes with time, and that the views of scientists change. What makes Kuhn so interesting, and potentially fruitful, is his claim that knowledge does not always change by piecemeal additions and substractions. Human knowledge is not to be viewed as so many bits, added to the total sum of knowledge like so many marbles to a pile. What we know is colored by the framework in which we do our knowing. This framework is a framework of assumptions, values, procedures, standards, and so on, in the particular field of knowledge.⁷

Even what we "see," even what seem to be the most elementary steps in knowledge or data that provide a basis for knowledge, are things seen and already to an extent organized in a way conditioned by our education, our background, our experience. Kuhn discusses at some length a psychological experiment with anomalously marked playing cards (e.g., a black seven of hearts or a red three of spades).⁸ When allowed to look at a card only for a short time, subjects saw what they thought were normal cards. When longer exposures were used, subjects often became emotionally upset or uneasy without becoming aware of the actual source of their unease. Another experiment with special glasses that invert the visual field shows that after a time of adjustment subjects see the world normally once again (even though their retinal images are the reverse of normal). Such experiments are suggestive of a much more general principle, already anticipated in gestalt psychology: understanding a part is influenced by understanding the whole. Sometimes the influence is subtle, but sometimes the influence is radical. Knowledge is contextually conditioned.

This contextual conditioning immediately explains why it is so notoriously difficult to argue someone into an alternation of the type that we have listed above (section 21). For instance, everyone knows that arguments aiming at religious conversion often do not succeed. Failures do not occur merely because people have deep emotional investments in religious views that they already hold. That is part of the story. But one of the difficulties resides in the persistent attempts of potential converts to integrate any particular argument offered them into their own full-fledged framework of knowledge, assumptions, standards, values, and the like. Judged by their standards, or by what they suppose that they know, the argument does not seem plausible.

For instance, to the modern materialist as to the ancient Greek, claims about a resurrection from the dead are ludicrous (Acts 17:32). To the pantheist or animist, claims that the natural world reveals its Creator are missing the point. That does not mean that no communication is possible. But it means that substantive communication takes discipline and patience.⁹ One must make explicit the hidden assumptions behind the rejection of the Christian message.

Similarly, arguments between Arminians and Calvinists may easily shoot past one another. To someone with an Arminian framework, the Calvinist claim that God decrees all things sounds like fatalism. Passages that appear to teach or imply God's decretal control must be interpreted otherwise, in view of the clear passages about human choice and responsibility on which Arminianism feels itself to be solidly based. Conversely, Arminian appeals to the passages on human responsibility do not move the Calvinist. In view of the fact that clear passages on divine sovereignty have confirmed the Calvinist position, the passages on human responsibility must be understood as speaking of such responsibility within the framework of divine control. If we cannot resolve the relation of the two in our own mind, it does not mean that such a resolution is impossible for God.

As theological debaters have found out, appeal to a proof text does not always persuade the opponent. From the advocate's point of view, the implications of the proof text seem to be clear. But the opposing position, as an entire framework for analysis and synthesis, provides standard resources for handling what to it are problem texts.

23. Seeing patterns

We can illustrate some influences of contextual knowledge even at the level of interpreting an individual text. Let us return again to Rom. 7:14-25. Historically, a large part of the debate has centered on two alternatives, the regenerate interpretation and the unregenerate interpretation. Behind this debate lurked an assumption commonly made by both sides: these two interpretations are the only alternatives. Such an assumption seems natural. Every person is either regenerate or not. Hence the passage must be speaking about one or the other. This assumption, then, functioned as part of the disciplinary matrix for reflection on the meaning of Rom. 7:14-25. It was part of the context of knowledge informing the discussion of any details of Rom. 7:14-25. Hence, to establish one's own alternative one had only to refute the other alternative. One can see this pattern in commentaries up to this day. John Murray, for example, lists five main points in favor of the regenerate interpretation.¹⁰ Four out of five points include a remark to the effect that such-and-such an aspect of Rom. 7:14-25 is impossible for an unregenerate man. These four points in effect presuppose a key point: "If Rom. 7:14-25 is inconsistent with the unregenerate man, it must be dealing with the regenerate man."

Consider now the effect of introducing the second-blessing interpretation. This interpretation introduces a third alternative, and suddenly it is no longer so easy to establish one's own alternative. The alternatives which appeared to cover the field now no longer do. To say that a regenerate man is in view in Rom. 7:14-25 is no longer enough. Murray, in fact, notes the existence of a third alternative, but then does not address the possibility that it may be correct.¹¹ Technically, the third alternative agrees with Murray that the regenerate man is in view. But it is no longer the regenerate man in general. It is only the regenerate man when he has lapsed from an ideal that is possible in this life. Hence, an argument that beforehand appeared to establish a solid case now reveals some crucial holes.

We can make the situation still more complicated by introducing still another view. According to D. Martin Lloyd-Jones, the man of Rom. 7:14-25 is "neither unregenerate nor regenerate."¹² Lloyd-Jones's claim sounds contradictory, but what he actually has in view is perfectly sensible. He has in view "awakened sinners," people who, under the influence of preaching, Bible reading, or other forms of contact with the Christian faith, have come to realize that they are guilty before a holy God. But these people have not yet understood the work of Christ, and have not come to an assurance of forgiveness and death to sin. In theory, of course, such people would still be either regenerate or unregenerate in an absolute sense. But when we meet such people we may not be able to tell which. Moreover, such people do not match what we know of the typical unregenerate or the typical regenerate person.

Now suppose that one returns to Murray's commentary after this excursion into Lloyd-Jones's position. Murray's arguments, which before appeared solid, now seem dubious. Murray's interpretation may still be right in the end. But his whole argument is going to have to be rethought, because it apparently does not anticipate the possibility of Lloyd-Jones's interpretation. Murray's argument in effect assumes that Rom. 7:14-25 cannot be describing personal characteristics intermediate between typical regenerate and typical unregenerate cases.

The alternative interpretations produced by second-blessing theology and by Lloyd-Jones are interesting because of the way in which they break up a previously established pattern of looking at Rom. 7:14-25. The previous pattern was this: either regenerate or unregenerate. People using this pattern could not see that there was any other alternative. In fact, they "knew," on the basis of impeccable logic, that these were the only possible alternatives.

Now the second-blessing alternative arrives. Its challenge to the pattern is, in a sense, relatively mild. It says, "Yes, indeed, there are regenerate and unregenerate people. The person spoken of in Rom. 7:14-25 must be one or the other. But there may be further subdivisions within these basic types." The arguments will then no longer proceed the same way in detail. A tension between Rom. 7:14-25 and Rom. 8, for example, has more than one solution if Rom. 7:14-25 may be describing one type of regenerate man and Rom. 8 another type.

Lloyd-Jones's approach is more radical, because it partly denies the relevance of the regenerate/unregenerate contrast itself. According to Lloyd-Jones, Paul is not asking himself whether the person in question is regenerate or unregenerate. Paul is describing a psychological and spiritual state which cuts across the old categories. Its symptoms are intermediate between the symptoms usually characterizing regenerate and unregenerate people. Lloyd-Jones, one might say, is asking us to focus on a different question altogether. Do not ask, "Regenerate or unregenerate?" but "What spiritual symptoms are shown in response to the law?" Lloyd-Jones has changed the debate by focusing on a cluster of spiritual symptoms rather than on the root of the process, namely whether or not the Holy Spirit has worked regeneration.

For a theologian, its seems so natural to go to the root of the matter immediately and ask about regeneration. This is the theologically important watershed, and so surely it must be the right question to ask here. To construe theological texts against the background of regeneration is, or was, part of the disciplinary matrix of doing theology.

But Lloyd-Jones did not take this step. Why not? One might wonder whether Lloyd-Jones discovered an alternative partly because of his previous experience in medicine. In medicine, the distinction between symptom and cause is common. Did Lloyd-Jones then find it natural to apply this distinction in a new field?¹³ Kuhn points out that people coming from another discipline are more likely to make innovative steps.¹⁴ They are not fully assimilated to the reigning disciplinary matrix.

The second blessing interpretation introduced a further distinction into the existing dichotomy, regenerate/unregenerate. Lloyd-Jones also introduces a further distinction. But, despite his paradoxical language, "neither unregenerate nor regenerate," his distinction is not really a third category alongside regenerate and unregenerate. Rather, it superimposes another plane of discussion, the plane of spiritual symptoms in response to the law. This subtly alters the entire nature of the discussion and the use of Rom. 7. Rom. 7 is not first of all a theological treatise or a classification; it is a kind of handbook for pastoral care.

People usually do not realize that this kind of shift of viewpoint is possible until they are shown. The whole history of interpretation may miss an important alternative interpretation because the history of interpretation sets up a framework of assumptions in which some questions are asked ("regenerate or unregenerate?") and others are not ("which symptoms does the spiritual patient show?").

The experience of interpreters of Rom. 7 is indeed reminiscent of the psychological experiments with human vision to which Kuhn refers.¹⁵ To some extent, people see what their past experience has trained them to expect to see. The subjects in the psychological experiments, having been trained by experience to see red hearts and black spades, typically do not notice that a different category, a red spade, is before their eyes. They may even become emotionally upset over seeing a red spade. Similarly, interpreters of Rom. 7 think only of the categories of regenerate and unregenerate even when other categories are possible in principle. And possibly, like the subjects in the psychological experiments, they become emotionally upset over the controversies that ensue in interpretation.

Some puzzles and riddles also offer suggestive analogies. In one riddle people are told that Jim's father died in a car accident in which Jim was seriously injured. When Jim arrived at the hospital, the surgeon looked at him and said, "I cannot operate on him, because he is my son." People do not solve the riddle until they question the underlying assumption, based on generalization from their past experience, that the surgeon is a man, not a woman.

As another example, a gardener is given the assignment of planting four trees so that each tree is the equally distant from each of the other three trees.¹⁶ People do not solve the puzzle unless they question the assumption that the trees are planted on level ground. The problem can be solved by planting three trees on level ground at the vertices of an equilateral triangle and the four tree on a hill in the middle of the triangle.

As a final example, try to connect all nine dots of figure 2 by placing a pencil on one dot, and then drawing four straight line segments without once raising the pencil from the paper. People solve the puzzle only when they question the common assumption that the line segments are not allowed to extend beyond the outermost dots.

Figure 2

Drawing Puzzle

. . .

. . .

. . .

In general, we may not see a possible solution to a riddle or a puzzle until we abandon a way of thinking that has become a rut. Likewise, in Bible study we may not see a possible interpretive alternative until we abandon a rut.

We are still not through with Rom. 7:14-25. Herman Ridderbos advocates still another approach to interpreting the passage.¹⁷ According to Ridderbos, the basic contrast in Rom. 7:14-25 is not regenerate/unregenerate, neither is it a contrast of symptoms of spiritual patients, unawakened/awakened/at-home-with-Christ. It is the contrast of two ages, pre-Pentecost/post-Pentecost. Prior to the resurrection of Christ and the sending of the Holy Spirit in Pentecostal power and presence, the people of God were bound under the law of Moses. Now they are "released from the law so that [they] serve in the new way of the Spirit, and not in the old way of the written code" (Rom. 7:6). Paul is not talking here merely about the general fact that God in his holiness passes judgement against everyone who sins, and in this sense they are under his standards ("law"). The "law" is concretely a "written code" (γραμματος, Rom. 7:6), the law of Moses. It is the law in its full particularity, including food laws and ceremonial sacrifices. Historically only the Jews, as God's people in special covenant with him, were under its provisions. And now those who have died with Christ have been released.

Ridderbos introduces another dimension to reading Rom. 7. All of the previous interpretations shared a common assumption: that Paul was making statements about the common condition of all people, irrespective of the historical circumstances. All were sinners, all fell short of the glory of God, all were condemned by God's righteous standards, all who were saved were saved by faith in Christ, all were justified by faith and so freed from the curse of God's condemnation, and so on. The preceding set of assumptions is nothing less than the common disciplinary framework of assumptions about Paul, Romans, and the New Testament.

Ridderbos does not disagree with any of the doctrines of this theology as such. But he maintains that Paul had another focus. In Rom. 7 Paul was focusing not just on the biography of individuals standing before God, but the history of the race, and of the Jews as the people of God uniquely set apart from all other peoples. Paul was writing about historia redemptionis (history of redemption), not simply or primarily about ordo salutis (steps in the salvation of an individual).¹⁸

The categories that Ridderbos uses cut across the conventional categories unregenerate/regenerate. Ridderbos is saying that Paul focuses not on the spiritual state of the individual in abstract terms (unregenerate/regenerate), nor on the symptoms of response to the law (unawakened/awakened), but on the systematic differences in life created by the objective transition between two orders of existence (under law of Moses/under the realm of union with the resurrected Christ).

It is interesting that people within the same doctrinal tradition can advocate different interpretations of Rom. 7. Calvin, D. Martin Lloyd-Jones, and Herman Ridderbos, all adherents of Reformed theology, advocate the regenerate interpretation, the awakened sinner interpretation, and the pre-Pentecost interpretation of Rom. 7:14-25, respectively. The differences between them must accordingly be viewed not as differences between systems of theology, but differences affecting only the interpretation of a single passage, Rom. 7.

But we should note that the differences are capable of becoming differences of theological style of an extensive kind. Followers of Calvin have traditionally made it a point to read many other passages with the regenerate/unregenerate distinction in mind. Followers of Lloyd-Jones might make it a policy to read many other passages (not Rom. 7 alone) in terms of the questions of spiritual symptoms. Followers of Ridderbos might make it a policy to read many other passages in terms of the questions of the transition of ages between OT and NT. In fact, Ridderbos participates in the redemptive-historical tradition within NT biblical theology that has adopted precisely this emphasis. This tradition claims consistently to arrive at more accurate interpretations of texts within the redemptive-historical framework. The transition to this framework from a preceding framework of reading passages in terms of justification and ordo salutis might possibly be analyzed in terms of the categories of revolution.

24. Why limited vision does not imply relativism

Some readers may ask themselves whether my analysis above leads to relativism. Does it mean that a text (e.g. Rom. 7:14-25) has no fixed meaning, but that the meaning depends on the framework (disciplinary matrix) that one uses to look at the text? Does it mean that systems of theology (e..g, Roman Catholicism, Calvinism, Arminianism) are neither right nor wrong, but all are right depending what disciplinary matrix one uses in systematic theology? Similar questions were addressed to Kuhn in the wake of his book on revolutions in science.¹⁹

Kuhn's answer is a complex one. He is not a nihilist, nor a relativist in the sense of believing that the choice between systems is irrational. Theists, however, are bound to be dissatisfied with Kuhn's answer, because they do not believe that human beings are the only standard for truth. The proper standard for truth is not found in human bweings corporately or individually but in God who is the source of all truth.²⁰

Hence one must say that there is a right and wrong in the interpretation of Rom. 7, and a right and wrong in a theological system. However, it is not necessarily easy for human beings to arrive at what is right. Larger frameworks or disciplinary matrices have an influence. In part, the influence is a good one. An effective, fruitful disciplinary matrix regularly steers researchers towards fruitful ways of looking at a passage and fruitful ways of analyzing and solving theological difficulties. But any disciplinary matrix, by suggesting solutions primarily in one direction, can make people almost blind to the possibility of solutions in another direction. Such, surely, is one of the lessons to draw from the history of interpretation of Rom. 7.