Discussing the doctrine of scripture is surely nothing for the faint-hearted. Cues, such as biblical ‘inerrancy’ or ‘infallibility’, trigger many a theologian's hypertension, both in Europe and (perhaps even more so) on the other side of the Atlantic. Yet fervid debates on the attributes of scripture are not a novelty. About a hundred years ago, Swiss theologian Adolf Schlatter (1852–1938) was caught in the crossfire of the opposing camps of fundamentalist Pietism with their strict interpretation of inerrancy, and the higher criticism of theological liberalism. As Schlatter objected to being pigeonholed as a member of either of those movements, the (offended) Pietists called him a ‘faithless critic’ (glaubenslosen Kritiker), whereas the Liberals labelled him a ‘biblicist without criticism’ (kritiklosen Biblizisten),Footnote 1 ‘unfit for scientific work’ (untüchtig zur wissenschaftlichen Arbeit).Footnote 2 While this situation was often personally painful for Schlatter back then, his unique position allowed him to develop his own irenic approach to the doctrine of scripture, which is stimulating for us today.
Scripture as means of grace
For our purpose, we need a representative but concise account of Schlatter's doctrine of scripture. The best place to go, then, is perhaps Schlatter's Das christliche Dogma (1911/1923).Footnote 3 A quick glance at the table of contents reveals the first surprise: Schlatter decides against the classic way of presenting an introduction to scripture right at the outset. In fact, his doctrine is a long time coming; one needs to skim through 363 pages (of a total of 553 pages of the main text) before reaching the heading, ‘Scripture’, in the chapter titled ‘Christianity as the Community Called to God, Soteriology’ (Die Christenheit als die zu Gott berufene Gemeinde, Soteriologie). As Schlatter positions his treatment of scripture under the rubric of soteriology (and next to ecclesiology), he reveals the fundamental motive of his agenda.Footnote 4 While Schlatter feels that scripture has been sufficiently acknowledged as a ‘means of knowledge’ (Erkenntnismittel), he thinks that theology has neglected its soteriological importance as ‘means of grace’ (Gnadenmittel), namely scripture's ability to make us ‘wise for salvation through faith in Christ Jesus’ (2 Tim. 3:15).Footnote 5
In what follows, I shall examine what Schlatter considers the central attributes of scripture, namely inspiration, unity, authority, infallibility and clarity. While some of these terms might look familiar to the Protestant orthodox eye – reminding us of the affectiones scripturae – the sense of déjà vu is short-lived; a closer look quickly reveals that Schlatter puts his own spin on these traditional concepts.
Before turning to a closer investigation of Schlatter's soteriological approach to scripture, one needs to bear in mind a Schlatterian peculiarity: Schlatter's treatment of scripture in the Dogma is designed to offer an alternative to what he considers to be unbalanced approaches of an ‘old doctrine of inspiration’ (alte Inspirationslehre).Footnote 6 Unfortunately, Schlatter remains quite vague when it comes to explaining which concrete movements or individual theologians he has in mind here. (Of course, this might have been the safest strategy for someone sitting between the frontlines trying to avoid theological shrapnel.) Instead of engaging too much in speculation, the most promising tactic, it seems, is to focus more on Schlatter's alternative suggestions and to seek ways in which they might be applied to our situation today.
Historic-pneumatic organic inspiration
Schlatter opens by discussing ‘Scripture's origin in the Spirit’ (Die Herkunft der Schrift aus dem Geist).Footnote 7That scripture is inspired by the Holy Spirit is for Schlatter undeniable, and he does not waste any ink dwelling on it. More contentious, and thus in need of clarification, Schlatter feels, is how the Spirit's inspiration works. For him, post-Reformation theology has produced lopsided answers, and he thus sees the need to offer a more balanced account, in particular with regard to the Holy Spirit's relation to anthropology and history.
With a view to the Holy Spirit's relation to anthropology, then, Schlatter complains that far too often the human authors have been depicted as passive actors in the play of inspiration; the author ‘is being moved like the lyre by the musician and like the pen by the writer’.Footnote 8 In this case, human cognition, volition and emotion are neglected: inspiration ‘bypasses the human life-act’ (am persönlichen Lebensakt vorbei),Footnote 9 and the Holy Spirit turns out to be the ‘destroyer of our humanity’ (Zerstörer des Menschlichen).Footnote 10 Over against any ‘dictation-theory’ tendencies (Schlatter probably has Philo of Alexandria in mind here, whose influence he still seems to observe in contemporary Protestantism),Footnote 11 Schlatter puts forward his own model of what one could call ‘organic inspiration’. In inspiration, Schlatter contends, God's Spirit neither overpowers nor overwrites our humanity. Rather, ‘the Spirit engages our personal life in its unity’, he argues, ‘which does not suppress nor substitute our natural capacities, but the Spirit preserves, wills and uses the whole range of our natural vitality’.Footnote 12 ‘For this reason’, he concludes, ‘God's messengers are – through the work of the Spirit – not stripped of their characteristic idiosyncrasies, but the Spirit creates and completes these and renders them humans in their wholeness (aus einem Guß), where thought and will, word and work arise from the same holy root and where they are steeped into God's light and truth’.Footnote 13
In order to illustrate this organic relationship between pneumatology and anthropology, Schlatter draws (and this is an interesting move) a distinct christological parallel. The Holy Spirit, Schlatter writes, creates in Jesus ‘his humanity in its entirety’; that is, through the Spirit's work in Jesus Christ, the humanity of the Son of God is ‘enabled to act’ (zur Tat befähigt).Footnote 14 Now, in a similar way, the Spirit is active in the human authors of scripture, so that their humanity remains intact: ‘[t]hey have life through the Spirit and are not used as will-less instruments’.Footnote 15 In a highly creative way, Schlatter draws on his spirit-christology to elucidate the organic process of inspiration.
Secondly, Schlatter closely relates pneumatology to history. Scripture, he argues, was not inspired in a historical vacuum, but against the context of concrete history, a fact that he feels some of his contemporaries neglected. Schlatter sees a clear, historically effective continuity between the inspired original authors and our own historical setting today. That is, as the Holy Spirit called and inspired the authors back then, so he calls us now in the present – through them – in scripture, as it were; and in this sense, ‘[t]he past experiences become our own experiences’.Footnote 16 Perhaps one could phrase it like this: through the Spirit, scripture originated within concrete history, made history and still creates new histories.Footnote 17 According to Schlatter, then, ‘a right pneumatology and a correct [understanding of] history are indissolubly connected’.Footnote 18 William Baird is certainly on the right track when he calls Schlatter's view of inspiration ‘historic-pneumatic’.Footnote 19 With a view to inspiration, then, Schlatter reminds us to consider the close relationship between pneuma(-chris)tology, anthropology and history.
Christological unity
Next, Schlatter deals with the ‘unity of scripture’ (Die Einheit der Schrift).Footnote 20 The unity of scripture is rooted in the unity of God,Footnote 21 and scripture is God's means of creating unity in us (in our thinking and willing, and doing) and among us as the united community of faith.Footnote 22 The inner unity of scripture is for Schlatter the prerequisite for our intra-individual soteriological and inter-individual ecclesiological unity. To shed more light on his view of scripture's unity, Schlatter again refers to christology. ‘The unity of Scripture arises’, Schlatter maintains, ‘because the history which created it and is witnessed in it has its unity in Christ’.Footnote 23 Having worked alongside his Lutheran friend Hermann Cremer (1834–1903) for some years in Greifswald, Schlatter is unashamed to quote Luther's dictum, ‘whatever deals with Christ is canonical’ (was Christum treibe, sei kanonisch).Footnote 24
This statement, however, has in Schlatter's view often been misinterpreted. Thus he clarifies that not only explicit references to Christ are to be considered canonical, but scripture as a whole is steeped in christology, and our task is then to figure out ‘in which sense a part of scripture points to Christ’ (wiefern ein Teil der Schrift den Christus bezeuge).Footnote 25 More precisely, there is a need to discern how a certain passage or concept relates to the ‘work of Christ’.Footnote 26 The law then, for example, though it might not mention Christ explicitly, points to Christ as it shows us the necessity for his redeeming work on the cross. While some parts of scripture might be more (or less) clear in their witness to Christ, this does not mean that there are different ‘levels of inspiration’ (Stufen der Inspiration).Footnote 27 The process of inspiration, Schlatter reminds his readers, is a ‘creative gift of God, an absolute act . . . Whether he gives less or more: God is the giver’.Footnote 28 On this basis then, Schlatter can affirm the inner unity of scripture: ‘From whatever point we might grasp it [scripture]’, he writes, ‘we are being led into it as a unity’.Footnote 29
The beauty of this unity of scripture, however, is not clear to everyone. Scripture's unity, Schlatter insists, is only fully recognised by those who are soteriologically connected with it. Only when we enjoy a ‘connection with it’ (Anschluß an sie) by faith, are we ‘led into the fullness of the divine grace’.Footnote 30 Similar to Schleiermacher, then, Schlatter argues for faith as a presupposition, which defines our ‘regard’ (Ansehen) of scripture.Footnote 31
Authority: biblical criticism and discipleship
Turning his attention next to the ‘authority of scripture’, Schlatter claims that scripture possesses authority simply because God is its author. While Schlatter declares this truth to be self-evident, he seeks to correct what he considers mistaken views of scripture's authority as advocated by the ‘old Protestantism’.Footnote 32
In the aftermath of the Reformation, Schlatter complains, a passive-quietistic understanding of scripture's authority crept into Protestant theology, namely where ‘God's Spirit is [considered] to calm . . . both writer and reader’.Footnote 33 The successors of Luther and Calvin thus became ‘weaker’, and scripture was reduced to a ‘dead possession (Besitz) which does not create any [sense of] ownership (Eigentum), either in our knowledge or in our volition’.Footnote 34 Here, ‘the authority of scripture is broken as it is no longer effective in us as the author and architect of our movement of life (Lebensbewegung)’.Footnote 35 This indicates that for Schlatter, the authority of scripture consists very much in its effect upon us: scripture is authoritative as it generates and directs our ‘movement of life’. I will return to this significant aspect in a moment.
Furthermore, and still under the heading ‘The authority of scripture’, Schlatter turns to biblical criticism. While this location seems at first glance strange, a closer look reveals Schlatter's insistence that biblical criticism and authority belong together in that the critique of scripture – understood in the literal, Greek sense (kritikos), which refers to our ability to judge and to discern – must always function within the boundaries of scriptural authority. Schlatter distinguishes two necessary levels of biblical criticism, namely the historical critique and the dogmatic critique.
Historical critique, as Schlatter understands it, ‘examines the relation of the biblical testimony to the course of history which forms it’.Footnote 36 Schlatter is convinced that a close scrutiny of the historical-linguist context of the biblical data is an absolute necessity. Textual criticism, questions of authorship, sources, readership, intention, purposes, etc. are all legitimate aspects of a historical critique to Schlatter's mind, and he himself pioneered in the field of New Testament research.Footnote 37 Up to this point, Schlatter's Pietist readers might perhaps only have experienced a light nervous twitch. This twitch, however, after reading Schlatter's subsequent statement in the Dogma, has the potential of developing into a full blown heart attack; for Schlatter writes: ‘As we consider its [scripture’s] place within history, we make clear how far its truth reaches and also where it ends, the extent to which we consider an assertion to be valid or not.’Footnote 38 At this stage, one wonders whether Schlatter has given up on his ‘mediatorial’ position and simply sided with historical-critical liberalism. Before prematurely labelling Schlatter an outright liberal critic, one is well advised to take a closer look.
It appears that Schlatter reveals here an inconsistency between his theory and practice. In theory, Schlatter seems to agree with a strict historical critique of scripture, where in fact historical evidence could contradict scripture. Yet while he is happy to apply this critique – albeit sparingly – to the Old Testament, Schlatter never puts this principle into practice when it comes to the New Testament.Footnote 39 Peter Stuhlmacher, consequently, though in general favourable towards Schlatter, complains that the latter ‘seeks time and again strange loopholes in order to avoid such critical judgements’;Footnote 40 and Markus Bockmuehl argues, likewise, that ‘Schlatter's work did not consistently heed his own call for historical reading of the bible, but acquiesced in a good deal of harmonization’.Footnote 41 This inconsistency clearly illustrates how Schlatter was still influenced by the biblicism of his Tübingen teacher Johann T. Beck (1804–78), while he also tried to do justice to what he considered a ‘high view’ of science, which (theoretically) involved a rigorous critique of scripture. In the end, it seems, the Beckian legacy trumped higher criticism, at least in practice.Footnote 42 Obviously, Schlatter could have been more consistent had he abstained from this particular aspect of the historical critique in the first place.
Schlatter turns next to the dogmatic critique, which seems, in his eyes, to be the most crucial aspect of biblical criticism. In the dogmatic critique, we ‘apply the word of scripture to ourselves’, in such a way that we ‘clarify for ourselves when and why the word of scripture applies to us and when and why it does not apply to us’.Footnote 43 With a view to those practising speaking in tongues, for example, Schlatter claims that the dogmatic critique has not been exercised correctly: this practice merely imitates what Paul did, ‘but not what we are to do today’.Footnote 44 Instead of imitation, Schlatter advocates assimilation; that is, dogmatic critique helps us to avoid a blind, obedient imitation of what we find in scripture, and helps us instead to sharpen our capacity for assimilating scripture, so that it would have ‘divine authority’ over us.Footnote 45 Scripture has proper, divine authority over us when the ‘gift which is offered in scripture [is brought] into our possession’.Footnote 46 In a unique way, Schlatter here brings together scripture's authority and biblical criticism (again, ‘criticism’ here being understood not as finding fault but literally, as expressing a personal judgement). As mentioned earlier, Schlatter is convinced that debates that focused exclusively on a propositional definition of scriptural authority lead to scholarly lethargy. As an alternative, Schlatter suggests an experiential, relational approach, where scripture exhibits authority over us as we ‘recognise and assimilate for ourselves what is given to us in scripture’.Footnote 47 Schlatter can thus write that scripture ‘has become the canon for the one to whom it shows God's will’.Footnote 48 Ultimately, then, scripture possesses divine authority as it empowers us in Christian discipleship, that is, as it ‘helps us to our own good will through which we serve God and neighbour’.Footnote 49 From this perspective, one understands why Schlatter argues that ‘true and justified biblical criticism’ (ächte und berechtigte Bibelkritik) is only rightfully pursued from one's existential standpoint as a ‘disciple’ (Jünger).Footnote 50
Relational-volitional infallibility
Moving on, Schlatter focuses next on the attribute of ‘infallibility’ (Unfehlbarkeit). This attribute, he claims, has often been misinterpreted and is thus in serious need of clarification. First of all, Schlatter underlines that infallibility itself is a characteristic that is intrinsic only to God and can never be transferred to anyone or anything else, the Bible included. He writes:
Infallibility is God's characteristic; yet it is exclusively God's characteristic and it is not passed on to the human beings who stand in the service of God. Not scripture, but the God who gives scripture and calls us through it is infallible.Footnote 51
Schlatter intends to correct what he considers a ‘rational interpretation of infallibility’ (intellektualistische Fassung der Unfehlbarkeit).Footnote 52 He is apparently concerned about tendencies towards ‘bibliolatry’ in Protestantism where the ‘infallible book’ is worshipped at the altar of passive rational piety, while the God who inspired it and still intends to use it as an active ‘means of grace’ for us recedes into the background. A purely cognitive approach to infallibility could distract us from God's purpose to use scripture to ‘create the certainty of God through Christ in us’.Footnote 53
Thus, instead of a establishing a rational argument for the intrinsic infallibility of scripture, Schlatter chooses again the relational argument, where the infallible God achieves his purposes in relation to us with the Bible. ‘God does not demonstrate his glory by proving to us that he can author an infallible book’, Schlatter writes, ‘but he does so by connecting human beings with himself in that they utter his words as humans’.Footnote 54 Scripture, he argues, ‘shows us its infallibility as it draws us to the infallible one, namely to God’.Footnote 55 Moreover, scripture is not only effective as it offers us a new relationship with God through Christ, but also as it brings about the ‘obedience of faith’ (Rom 16:26) as we are empowered with a new volitional impetus. The Bible's ‘primary intention and action’, Schlatter writes, ‘is that it wages war with our will so that our will might give itself up to God’.Footnote 56 Again, one notices how closely Schlatter relates scripture to soteriology, and in particular to his volitional emphasis.Footnote 57 According to Schlatter's view, then, scripture is ‘authentic’ (glaubwürdig), a term he seems to prefer over ‘infallible’,Footnote 58 as it connects us with the One who renews not only our thinking but also our volition and action.Footnote 59
Catholic clarity
Schlatter finally deals with the ‘clarity of scripture’ (Verständlichkeit der Schrift), the last but not the least of the attributes. Again, Schlatter takes up the challenge of the ‘old Protestantism’, where it was claimed that ‘everyone can understand scripture; if it remains ineffective, it is one's own problem’.Footnote 60 Schlatter criticises here, it seems, the remnants of a post-Reformation radical Anabaptist tendency to interpret sola scriptura too restrictively, such that ‘the individual is supposed to establish its relation with scripture alone, without the help of the community’Footnote 61 – the situation, in Richard A. Muller's words, of ‘the lonely exegete confronting the naked text’.Footnote 62 Yet the ‘historical character of the Bible’, Schlatter objects, and our different levels of ‘understanding’ (Sehvermögen), make scripture somewhat less clear than this perspective seems to assume.Footnote 63 To achieve clarity, Schlatter argues, we need the help of others. ‘In both our historical interpretation and in our assimilation of the Bible’, Schlatter contends, ‘as they awaken our faith and our love, we are dependent upon the help of others, and indeed, we receive it.’Footnote 64 Schlatter thus encourages his Pietist contemporaries to embrace a more catholic (with a small ‘c’!) perspective. He writes:
It would be an illusion if we were tantalised by the belief that we read the Bible alone. The church reads it and through its collaborative work it achieves the ability to understand it and to use it. This is what defines the truth of the catholic sentence: The Bible is the possession of the church.Footnote 65
With brave sentences such as these, Schlatter clearly wants to do away with any dualistic views of scripture and church/tradition, where the humanness of the church is pitted against the divinity of scripture, according to the credo: in church we ‘learn from human beings’, whereas in scripture, ‘only God speaks’.Footnote 66 Encouraging his Protestant readers to discard their suspicion of the church, Schlatter suggests an organic relation between scripture and church, as both are, in fact, ‘means of grace’. Our teachers and preachers in church stand in God's service and become for us ‘carriers of a divine gift’ (Träger einer göttlichen Gabe), while ‘Scripture connects us with God in a way that makes us listen to the human beings he has called to teach us’.Footnote 67 Of course, Schlatter is still a Protestant, and he is thus keen to add that ‘the word of scripture possesses supremacy over the word of the church’, and without a doubt, the ‘church's service’ does not make our own, personal study of scripture superfluous, for ‘a theological science that leads us away from scripture is a disaster for the church and a liability’.Footnote 68 Nevertheless, in his move to recognise scripture as the ‘common possession of the church’, Schlatter emphasises the church's significant ‘exegetical work’, which happens during ‘Sunday worship,’ where the ‘word of scripture enlightens us and connects with our own life’.Footnote 69
Having briefly considered how Schlatter adds his own qualifying adjectives to what he considers the decisive attributes of scripture – inspiration as organic and historic-pneumatic, unity as Christocentric, authority as evoking discipleship, infallibility as relational-volitional and clarity as catholic – I shall now turn to some concluding observations on the contemporary relevance of Schlatter's approach.
Conclusion
Three aspects are worth of our consideration: first, Schlatter's special focus on the effects of scripture, secondly, his holistic definition of the nature of scripture and, thirdly, his catholic emphasis.
First of all, Schlatter encourages us to revisit afresh the Reformers’ original emphasis on scripture as a ‘means of grace’. His creative relational-actualist perspective on the attributes of scripture offers food for thought for theologians today: scripture is inspired not only because it imparts knowledge to us, but first and foremost as it creates faith and love in us through the Spirit, taking hold of us in our whole ‘life-act’ (Lebensakt); scripture exhibits unity as it is united in the unity of Christ's being and action who creates through it the unified community of faith; scripture possesses authority as it represents the divine ‘means of grace’, whereby we are animated to assimilate scripture, thus receiving an experiential ‘connection with God’ (Anschluß an Gott); scripture is infallible as it achieves this end with efficacious ease, creating in us a new volition to do God's will; and, finally, scripture possesses perspicuity as we read it together, in teaching and preaching, speaking and listening and studying, as a community of faith. Ultimately, then, Schlatter understands scripture as the powerful means of God's grace, who creates, through it, the ‘new human being’. Schlatter writes:
The ultimate, highest goal of scripture . . . is that it wants to create God's human being. Scripture does not just want to whisper us a doctrine or merely lay upon us a law or a custom; its purpose lies much deeper. It creates the human being which is of God.Footnote 70
Secondly, Adolf Schlatter suggests a holistic definition of the nature of scripture. The doctrine of scripture in Schlatter's opus is not an isolated prolegomenon; rather, it constitutes an organic part of his whole project. In a harmonious way, Schlatter weaves together the doctrine of scripture with other central doctrines, such as the person and work of Christ, pneumatology, anthropology and soteriology. Only in recent years, it seems, have theologians begun to acknowledge the importance of relating the doctrine of scripture organically with other central doctrines in this way instead of treating it merely as a prolegomenon to dogmatics. Telford Work, for example, calls us to locate our doctrine of scripture more in ‘the economy of salvation’, advocating ‘an economic Trinitarian theology of Scripture’.Footnote 71 John Webster recommends a ‘Christological-pneumatological clarification of the nature of Scripture’,Footnote 72 and Timothy Ward describes his own goal of presenting a doctrine of scripture as ‘shaped from the bottom up by the character and actions of God . . . yet without the inert book coming to eclipse the living Savior’.Footnote 73 Schlatter would certainly be happy with these suggestions, and as this article intends to show, he himself has much to offer in this respect. There is undoubtedly great potential in studying more closely how, for example, Schlatter, relates scripture to soteriology and ecclesiology, and how he uses his spirit-christology to elucidate an organic inspiration that neither venerates nor denigrates anthropology.
Finally, Schlatter makes a strong case for the communal use of scripture, offering here much by way of ecumenical promise. The Protestant hermit in his closet, isolated from the community, is unable to fully understand scripture; this is in Schlatter's view a caricature of the Reformation understanding of sola scriptura – and more like what Keith A. Mathison calls solo scriptura.Footnote 74 For Schlatter, community and text are organically interrelated, while, of course, scripture remains solely authoritative and authentic. For our debate today, it seems particularly promising to study how Schlatter relates pneumatology to the concept of history and tradition. The Spirit who inspired the apostles and evangelists still guides us and works in us as we read inspired scripture together as a community. Theology thus needs to revisit the ‘concept of the Spirit’ (Geistgedanken), if we are to understand how God works his gifts among us as scripture is proclaimed.Footnote 75 Schlatter's repeated suggestion to reconsider the Reformers is, particularly in this respect, good advice; John Calvin, for example, has much to say about the Spirit's role.Footnote 76 Taken together, Schlatter's balanced understanding of the attributes of scripture might work to both temper and stimulate our contemporary discussion. Schlatter might be a voice from the past, yet our theological community would do well to listen to him today.Footnote 77
